One Life, Many Lives

I entered a room and saw familiar strangers and knew in an instant they were me: past lives made living flesh again. I saw the fat baby, 38 pounds at one year! (Poor Momma's back!) I saw the angel-face boy of four who spoke only gibberish-- the doctors told my parents "Sorry, but he's an imbecile, best send him far away." Lucky for me, Mom And Dad got a second opinion, and six years of speech lessons till I spoke like a happy little English lord.... Then I saw the teenager--tall, gaunt of cheek, dismissive of lesser intellects. I grimaced, and he sneered: I did not like him, nor did he like me (though we both lamented his forlorn virginity) Behind him stood a 20 something. I had filled out by then, handsome, confident with women, tossing them aside like used hankies, not knowing how vast was my emptiness-- not even knowing I was a blind man until...I crashed into that fog- shrouded iceberg called Death. And Death took me to that terrible place where my soul burned briefly, and then, without explaining, returned me to life. My soul, which one day I had not believed in, and the next I knew to be absolute, had been seared but my eyes finally opened and I began to see beyond this world of pleasure and pain, hunger and feast, war and peace. Then I met my married self, and shared with him the happiest day of our life, when she said yes to a man still lacking but at least now trying. Decades later, he is still inching closer to God.