Stories

“The Boy at 78” ©

Introduction
My friend & I have intermittently crossed paths around town over the past 35 years. We met in the early ’80’s while working at the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Homicide Bureau. A soft-spoken man with a calm demeanor, he enjoys liberal politics as he lives a, seemingly, very secular life. His secular disposition stands in striking contrast to religiosity making his story especially compelling.

The Scene
While engaging in retiree small talk one afternoon, uncharacteristically and in hushed gentle tones, he began telling a personal story that I saw from the onset as very spiritual in nature an observation he missed, at least at first. He seemed to be in a “zone” as they say in basketball, enormously focused as he took a “deep dive” into his personal recollection. He appeared to be realizing for the first time that, the story he had known so well his whole life had, in fact, been a deeply spiritual experience. I characterize his story as, how an eight-year-old boy spoke to himself seventy years later, causing an epiphany.

The Story
Several years following the end of WWII, he was eight years old living in Redondo Beach. One summer day, the local boys club took he and several other members to the Redondo Beach Public Pool. Like most eight-year-old boys, he was full of excitement and energy, and on this particular day he carried with him a lot of overconfidence.

A great splash exploded amidst the other children as he leapt into the pool. He immediately began to paddle-out into the open water with the pool’s bottom gradually sinking away from his dangling feet with every stroke. He reached a point where he realized he had gone too far exceeding his ability. His confidence dashed, he reached the point of no return. Out of energy and unable to paddle any longer, he fell helplessly beneath the surface, unable to yell, only gasping and gulping as he slowly sank deeper and deeper beneath the cacophony of the children above. “I tried to stay afloat, but it was useless!”

Testimony
“As I drifted downward approaching the pool’s bottom, I became increasingly serene. Floating aimlessly, feeling no pain, or fear, euphoria overtook my senses. I saw a light, a blindingly bright light. I felt myself compelled to go to it.  
I was happy as I move closer and closer toward it with euphoria increasing as it neared. It was an insatiable feeling wrought with passion, a desire I didn’t want to end. I felt encapsulated in the arms of love, warmth, and serenity. I didn’t want to leave. I looked-on watching my floating body from a position outside and slightly above “myself”.  It seemed to be floating in a surreal womb of amniotic fluid cushioning and protecting me”. At this point of the story, he “stopped.
A few seconds later, he looked directly at me with a stunned expression of sudden awareness, making this pronouncement, “I felt complete”. He then continued, “Suddenly, I burst back into consciousness. A stranger was applying the old styled resuscitation technique, the one that preceded CPR; he was successful and I was revived.”

He said that he had never shared this story with anyone, saying, “I can’t explain what happened, or why I felt compelled to share it right now!” I offered that 70 years of secularism was getting in the way of his embracing the truth. I then asked him what he thought the light and euphoria was. He looked at me with solace in his eyes and haltingly said “God”. Knowing him all these years, I was
stunned!

I told him he was right and that the bright light was the manifestation of God’s glory. I added that the Force that compelled him to share his story that day was the same Force that raised Jesus from the grave and was beckoning him now. I suggested that the Lord provided an extra 70 years to that eight-year-old boy that day at the pool and now, 70 years later, the LORD was providing him with another opportunity to choose “eternal” life with the same GOD he encountered at the bottom of the Redondo Beach Public Pool. I ended with the observation that not everyone is given multiple reminders like this and that fact made him very special. Was this an epiphany, we can only pray it is accepted as such, but I note that this was the first time in 35 years, that I can recall his ever publicly acknowledging “God”.

May we all be ever-attentive for out of the mouths of babes may come our call to enter the glorious light of our SAVIOR for evermore.

Matthew 18:2-3
And Jesus called a little child unto Him, and set him in the midst of them,
And said, verily I say unto you, except you be converted and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Mark 10: 5
Verily I say unto you, whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.

 

 

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