Page 21 of The Next Person You Meet in Heaven
“Understandable.”
“And I’m really sorry, but I don’t remember you.”
Sameer shrugged. “Lots of kids don’t remember their doctors. Starting with the ones who delivered them.”
***
Annie studied the mature face before her, the jowls heavy with middle age, the temples flecked with gray hair. In the dark eyes, she saw the shadow of the impulsive boy.
“If this is really heaven,” she asked, “why are you the person greeting me? Aren’t I supposed to see God? Or Jesus? Or at least someone I remember?”
“That comes in time,” Sameer said. “But the five people you meet first are chosen for a reason. They affected you in some way on earth. Maybe you knew them. Maybe you didn’t.”
“If I didn’t know them, how could they affect me?”
“Ah.” He patted his hands. “Now comes the teaching part.”
He stepped around the bed and looked through the window.
“Tell me something, Annie. Did the world begin with your birth?”
“Of course not.”
“Right. Not yours. Not mine. Yet we humans make so much of ‘our’ time on earth. We measure it, we compare it, we put it on our tombstones.
“We forget that ‘our’ time is linked to others’ times. We come from one. We return to one. That’s how a connected universe makes sense.”
Annie looked at the white sheets and the blue blanket and the heavily bandaged hand that rested on her childhood belly. This was precisely when her lifestoppedmaking sense.
“Did you know,” Sameer continued, “that hundreds of years ago, they used plaster and tape to reattach noses? Later they used wine and urine to preserve severed fingers. Reattaching rabbits’ ears preceded efforts on humans. And not long before I was born, Chinese doctors trying replantation were still using needles that took two days to grind down.
“People lament that if their loved ones had been born fifty years later, they might have survived what killed them. But perhaps what killed them is what led someone to find a cure.
“Chasing that train was the worst thing I ever did—to myself. But my doctors used their knowledge to save me. And I advanced what they did on you. We tried a technique with your hand that we had never done before, allowing better blood flow through the arteries. It worked.”
He leaned in and touched Annie’s fingers, and she felt herself rising from inside her young body, returning to the mostly invisible form she had been before.
“Remember this, Annie. When we build, we build on the shoulders of those who came before us. And when we fall apart, those who came before us help put us back together.”
He removed his white lab coat and unbuttoned his shirt, far enough to yank it down over his right arm. Annie saw the squiggly scars from decades ago, now faded to a milky white.
“Know me or not, we’re part of each other, Annie.”
He tugged the shirt back on.
“End of lesson.”
Annie felt a tingling. Her left hand reappeared. For the first time in heaven, she felt pain.
“It won’t hurt long,” Sameer said. “Just a reminder.”
“Of my loss?” she asked.
“Of your attachment,” he replied.
***
With that, they were back to where Annie had arrived in the afterlife, between the snowcapped mountains and the massive skyscrapers. A giant wheel of railroad track unfurled and Annie saw a train heading their way.
