One life.

I groaned.
Then I groaned again.
I was seventy five years old…just about to call Life quits. I had been sitting in my favorite chair…green corduroy upholstered. It reminded me of my favorite childhood pants. And well, after seventy, we are all children again - soon to be babies without a care in the world.

Another groan.

I heard a voice.

“Remarkable. Most folks need a few hundred lives to make the transition.”

Another groan. A loud one. Who keeps groaning like that?

Turns out…me.

Did I have a stroke? Is this what a heart attack feels like? Because if it is, so much for dying peacefully in your sleep. This sucker hurt.

I groaned again.

“Just relax. It will settle down in a few minutes. Dying is always uncomfortable. Doing it while aware…I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

Ever try to relax while pain dribbled through ever nerved like molasses out of a cold glass bottle? Yeah. Me either. But the voice insisted it would help. So I tried.

And it did.

I opened my eyes when I knew (somehow) it wouldn’t cause any more pain. I wish I hadn’t. I was…please don’t laugh…I was sitting on a cloud with what I can only assume was an Angel. Or at least someone so pretty they could be mistaken for one. The kind of pretty that doesn’t care what sex it is…if it was either…or any.

“It isn’t polite to stare.”

Her, He, She, He, It…whatever took the sting out of that comment with a smile. A smile that made you realize that “radiant” really was a powerful adjective. And perhaps even a state of being.

“Where…what…who… why...”

The Angel (or whatever) laughed.

“Well, that’s a first. Nothing but interrogative pronouns. So let me answer in the order you asked them:
First, you are “in between.”
Second: “Waiting for your second life.”
Third: “I am the injector. More about that in a minute.”
Four: “Because you are about to realize why folks need more than one life.”

And with that, I finally understood why people in shock say that it felt like their brains or thoughts were scrambled. Because mine were.

The Angel thing laughed again.

“Okay, so here we go with the explanation. Which, to be quite frank, I have never given to anyone before with just one Life under their belt. This explanation usually happens around a couple hundred round trips between Life, living, Death, and rebirth. So you are something of an anomaly.”

She raised her hand to shush me (sorry, I guess I settled on “Her.” ) before I could unleash a barrage of questions that would have looked like D Day if they were bombs and not questions.

I kept silent.

“So just before you…well…died in that chair. Nice upholstery by the way. (I smiled and nodded. I thought so too.) You were thinking about prominent, rich, successful and powerful people. And you were thinking how does a guy living in a trailer who had five step dads before he got out of High School become a President of (then) the most powerful Nation on Earth. Or how a half dozen or so College Dropouts came to dominate the Top Ten Richest Men on Earth list. Or how someone becomes so good at Art, Music, Literature, that in just one lifetime…they change everything. “

I nodded.

She leaned in and winked.

“Well, here is the secret. It wasn’t one lifetime. You only get one Life, but that doesn’t mean you only get one Lifetime.”

Is she had feathers, well, one of them could have brushed up against me and bowled me over. So I knew that saying had weight to it too. Amazing what you learn when you are dead.

“I don’t understand.”

“I know. It is a lot to take in. That is why it usually takes a couple hundred lives…and deaths, before most figure it out. You did it in one. So more on that in a bit. So when you were wondering how those …people…came from a small town in West Texas to become a multi billionaire. Or how a guy who dropped out of college to start a computer company in his parent's garage got so filthy rich. Or maybe how another guy dropped out college to steal a computer, but figure out the software to become the Richest man in the World…at least for a bit.

Or maybe how a guy from a tiny town in Austria, with a drunken Dad suffering from PTSD from World War II, lifted a few weights, moved to America, became famous, a millionaire Real Estate tycoon, got into Acting and became a World Wide Action Movie Star. Parlayed that into a Political Career and then married into the American Equivalent of the Royal Family…all in a second language.

Or maybe you were thinking about that little Black Girl who had such a rough life that she had to join the sex trade as a teen ager to support her young son. Than managed a lesbian brothel. In her spare time she read Langston Hughes, Baldwin and Shakespeare. And she became a Poet. Won every possible Award for being a kind, courageous, honest and loving human Being. Medals from Presidents, the NAACP, and dozens of prestigious Universities.

Or maybe you were thinking about the great Physicists who were the sons of plumbers, tailors, and Town Clerks? Or maybe the Deaf Ph. D Student who changed the history of Astronomy and has the most powerful camera/telescope in the World named after her. You thought about many. Even the sad ones, who became famous because of their actions in War. Shooting enemy down in trenches like a Turkey shoot, in WW I. Or climbing on a Tank and scaring away the Nazi’s in WW II. Or winning the Medal of Honor in a regional conflict in some godforsaken remote part of the world.

All of those people did it in one lifetime. But not one life. They were here before. Nobody can pull those things off in one lifetime. But they can with one life. Theirs.

And you…well, you are going back. “

“I am?”

“Yes. For in just one lifetime, you figured out that if you only had one lifetime, you could have lived that one life. But you want the world to be kinder, gentler, more loving. You want peace and curiosity to rule. You have no desire to be rich, famous, or powerful. That is rare. Most folk just keep marching through their lifetimes to correct mistakes and grow stronger, richer, wiser, more powerful.

You want everyone to grow. So you go right back. “

“When?”

She smiled.

“Remember, when you can actually think and talk again…that will be in about three years…you only have one Life. But many lifetimes. Use them well.”

And in a small room in a Midwestern town that had seen the proverbial “better days”: a young Mother and her childhood sweetheart looked down at their first baby.

“He’s smiling!”

“He sure is.”

“That’s a good sign!”

“Yes. It is. He is going to have a happy life.”

The young man squeezed his wife’s shoulder. He would do whatever it took to make sure his girl, and their baby …would.

“I bet he changes the world!”

The young mother laughed.

“Don’t put too much pressure on him. He just got here. This is his first life.”

She was almost correct. You get many lifetimes. You only get one life.

Make it a good one.