Those Left Behind

Robert Mayer

Description

A man unexpectedly journeys to a realm between life and death where he must make an agonizing choice whether to live another life or accept his current destiny.

Is our life ruled by chance, and what about our afterlife? After a fall separates his body and spirit, Adam Glass finds himself drifting in a realm between life and death.

While in a coma with little chance of survival, Adam is given the chance to live another life in another world. But there is only one problem: he doesn’t know who he is. Is he the lifeless body in the hospital or is he whatever form he finds himself in now? After Adam chooses to live another life so he can return to his soulmate, Mary, he must face several unexpected obstacles. As he receives guidance from his deceased friends, Adam can only hope their help will be enough to overcome the obstacles, and that his love for Mary will be enough to make him endure a different existence than he ever imagined.

Those Left Behind is the story of one man’s unexpected journey to a realm between life and death where he must make an agonizing choice whether to live another life or accept his current destiny.

Sujets

• Mental Health
• Spirituality
• Addiction
• Hope
• Love
• Suicide
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Balboa Press
• Date de parution: 14 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798765239292
• Langue: English

Extrait

Those Left Behind
 
 
 
ROBERT MAYER
 
 

 
Copyright © 2023 Robert Mayer.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
Balboa Press
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.
 
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3928-5 (sc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3930-8 (hc)
ISBN: 979-8-7652-3929-2 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023902634
 
Balboa Press rev. date: 03/08/2023
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to some dear friends of mine, Vishal and Jason. It was a long journey for me to forgive the two of you and an even longer one to forgive myself. I apologize for taking so long to put myself out there. I’m sorry that you never knew that I shared your pain. I often think of the pain and loss to others that I may have been able to alleviate or even eliminate if I weren’t such a private person. I now know that it is never too late. I hope the wait has been worthwhile and that the three of us can help at least one other person through this book. I know you both are waiting for me on the other side, and I plan on making you wait a lot longer. Until then . . .
“Choice implies consciousness - a high degree of consciousness. Without it, you have no choice. Choice begins the moment you disidentify from the mind and its conditioned patterns, the moment you become present . . . . Nobody chooses dysfunction, conflict, pain. Nobody chooses insanity. They happen because there is not enough presence in you to dissolve the past, not enough light to dispel the darkness. You are not fully here. You have not quite woken up yet. In the meantime, the conditioned mind is running your life.”
Eckhart Tolle
PREFACE
As I grow more distant from my past, I can see more clearly the value it has for the present and future.
I wasn’t one to talk about things, let alone ask for help. For most of my childhood and into early adulthood, I was OK with being alone and even preferred it. I would sit up in my room, writing, reading, or drawing. I would do nothing and just think, just wonder about things. Mostly, I just kept things to myself, but I was happy.
A major change in my life changed that. I became suicidal and suffered from severe depression. Still, I kept things to myself. Very few people knew, and I don’t think anyone could have helped.
I didn’t commit suicide, obviously, and I was no longer suicidal, but I was depressed. Severely. Still, I kept things to myself. Years went by, I kept moving forward and doing things, really, just hanging on and hoping something would change within me. Then, I got the news that one of my best friends had committed suicide.
What if I had not kept things to myself? This is the main question that has haunted me since then. Sure, there’s many more questions, but this one, this one is always there. I didn’t and still don’t know why he did it, but it made me determined to take the next step. Still, I kept things to myself though.
My friend Vishal and I went to his funeral, we talked at lengths about different things. We both tried to make sense of it. I don’t remember if I told Vishal about how I was suicidal at one point as well. After that, I talked about suicide with other people but mainly just about how I dealt with a friend doing it. My own personal experience with being suicidal, I kept to myself.
I kept pushing myself to change though. I kept trying to make more and more decisions to make myself happier and happier. The depression still persisted and as it waned; anxiety increased. I made some tough decisions about life; I was successful but still not happy. I started dating a girl seriously for the first time, basically ever. I bought a house on some land and started raising chickens and ducks and geese and even got a dog and some goats. I was making plans to start a new company in something I was passionate about. That’s when I got the news that Vishal had committed suicide.
I just had appetizers and drinks with him, his girlfriend and my girlfriend a few weeks earlier. It was surreal to me. How did this happen again? He had seemed dissatisfied but not depressed or even unhappy. Once again, the question of what if I had not kept things to myself crept into my mind.
Life is full of questions and doubts, what ifs and what if nots. We don’t usually get it “right” immediately, eventually, or even ever but what does that even mean “to get it right”? Maybe, getting it right is just a matter of trying, persisting, hanging on or letting go. Chances are, it’s different for everyone and it’s different for them at different points. Just because we got something wrong doesn’t mean it’s the end. We just have to try to get some things right after that until we have the opportunity to make that mistake again . . . or to not.
INTRODUCTION
Driving down a dark highway through a heavy rain, the connection between my body and soul became loosened as my soul drifted away like a kite being slowly pulled by the wind. This wasn’t a moment of clarity, I was suicidal, and it was as if all of my thoughts, logic, reasoning, and concerns had been spooling up and were now being let out. I could feel the different sections that made up the line, the reasons I had for committing suicide, the reasons for not and the knots that tied them together while separating them. Suddenly, they unraveled. The knots went away, the spool ran out of line and with them, suicide. It went away, but it wasn’t replaced by hope or a desire to live or anything else. It was just . . . gone.
So, a journey began, out of nothingness but not without anything.
To me, it seemed as if I had to start my life over. Everything I thought I was, that I thought I was about, seemed to separate from me and leave me. It became a vivid portrait of who I was, shadowing me wherever I went, reminding me of how clear life once seemed and mocking me as I struggled to see clearly, the blur that I had become.
This book is a hypothetical journey. A journey of pain and suffering. A journey of redemption and realization. What if we could live another life to get back to where we were or where we are? To have another chance to appreciate our life and the people that make it meaningful.
How far would you go? How long would you endure?
CONTENTS
Chapter 1The Fall
Chapter 2The Day After
Chapter 3Accepting Reality
Chapter 4The Red Coat
Chapter 5Decision Time
Chapter 6Christmas Flashback
Chapter 7Circling Around
Chapter 8Starting Over
Chapter 9The Bench
Chapter 10Cracks
Chapter 11Moving On
Chapter 12Chasing the Monsters
Chapter 13Those Left Behind
Chapter 14Not Anymore

CHAPTER 1 The Fall
The silence resonated from ear to ear. It was as if a wave of it had hit and was slowly settling in as it swished back and forth, pushing the sensations of sound and pressure around his head and throughout his body. Adam laid there as the ripples of sound flattened. A mirror-like silence took over. That’s odd , Adam thought. His body felt light; his mind felt clear. He slowly opened his eyes as the glaring light from a lamppost appeared and seemed to shoot right through him. Squinting and blinking, he stared it into focus. Multiple-story buildings appeared behind it and to the left and right of it in his peripheral vision. He noticed the twinkling of Christmas lights and a wreath with a red ribbon hanging about three quarters of the way up the lamppost. Ugh, Chris tmas.
Adam wasn’t particularly fond of the holidays. One Christmas when he was young, he had saved up his allowance for months to buy Christmas gifts for his family. His excitement grew and grew as Christmas Day approached. The anticipation of his family’s excitement, gratefulness, and appreciation simmered as it came time to open presents. His older sister, Rachel, opened hers first, then his younger brother, Jared, and then his younger sister, Cindy. The gifts he got his sisters were nearly identical; however, the second his younger sister opened hers, his older sister demanded they switch. Despite his objections, they did switch, causing him to question every aspect of the Christmas spirit and gift