Write a narrative of at least four pages describing how it feels to come back as a spirit after your own death. This is not intended to depress you, but rather to help you appreciate what you have in this life. Give it a chance, and I promise that you will be enriched by the experience. The following restrictions will apply”
1. You can see only in black and white (no color).
2. No one can see or hear you or feel your presence in any way, except through memories.
3. You have no sense of smell or taste.
4. You have no sense of touch.
5. You no longer have power to act upon anything or anyone physically in this world.
6. You can travel to any place you like by just thinking of it…and you are there instantly.
7. You may travel to any times of your life that you wish and observe whatever happened then as an “outsider,” because these times would be just shadows of the things that have already passed.
8. Your hearing is perfect.
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Do not spend much time talking about how you died. The important thing is that you see life going on without you. You have left an empty space (empty desk at school, empty bed at home, etc.). You may attend your won funeral if you wish…and describe in some detail the reactions of friends and relatives. What would it feel like to see life go on without you, like a black and white TV show? What (whom) would you miss most” Are there things you regret not doing or saying before you died? Make the reader feel the sadness you feel and the emotions you experience about having take life for granted in certain ways (not having appreciated all the simple and beautiful things that life gives us.) Use the word, “I” as you describe the whole thing and make it sound REAL. Make me weep for the beauty you feel you have lost.
At the conclusion write a paragraph about the final moments before your spirit must leave this world forever and how that goodbye feels.
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The purpose of this writing is to make you look at your own life…the good and the bad of it…and to help you see what wonderful things you have missed or just taken for granted along the way…and perhaps to appreciate a little more that life is a miraculous gift. Remember Emily from Wilder’s OUT TOWN, Jacob Marley from A CHRISTMAS CAROL, and George Bailey from IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE. All lives are significant and filled with unspeakable beauty and possibility, even in the “smallest” ways. There is no exception. After you write the last sentence of your narrative, it should feel good to remember that your heart is still beating, and that life is still yours for making choices and making a difference in this world.
JB
