Underwater

Watercolors glimmer in the sky for twilight's final gloaming

Another day finished with the moon rising in pale silver

The ocean became a changeling, pulsing from blue to black

The icy northern wind blew and I began to walk into the frigid water

Morphine and absinthe are magic potions I had poured into my waiting body

The cold caused numbness without and the potion numbed everything within

As my body drifted under the water I suddenly felt the break

The snapping of the ethereal cord that binds our soul to our bodies

My heart and lungs stopped as my body was forever lost to the raging sea

My soul instinctively followed the ethereal cord to my new eternal destination beyond our physical realm

"I'm sorry I failed" my mind whispered, for now, I was pure energy and no longer needed a mouth to form words

I hadn't been able to remember enough while had lived my life on earth

But I had tried. I had tried so hard. With all that I was and all that I'd been, I'd tried

Suddenly it began to rain feathers of many brilliant hues

Gabriel, Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Barachiel had long ago ascended to realms so lofty that those of us still incarnating on earth could not directly communicate with them, even in nonphysical form

But it would seem they could send a gift now and then

The feathers of their wings were a rather grand gift for failure

"What you saw as failure was perhaps just the hardest path of all, the path no one could bear to ask of you", a chorus of voices whispered all around me. "Go now and embrace the family, friends, and pets from your life, as now they anxiously await you"

A relief and warmth I'd never known suddenly surrounded me, and in the distance, I began to see all the ones I'd loved and lost in the physical life I'd just departed

Maybe "failure" was just an illusion conjured up by a world still too young, selfish and materialistic

A lesson learned, a bit of progress made, these are never failures

Be at peace

Always

You have nothing to fear.