One of my favorite quotations is, “Life is filled with doors that close behind us and rooms we can’t go back to.”
Though I believe in apologies to those whom we’ve wronged in some way, I don’t usually think that regret is very productive, as it can often become guilt over what cannot be changed or made better. Because the past cannot be altered (except perhaps in science fiction), we are left with only the present to shape into whatever future we hope for. Maybe the best thing is that life for each of us can continue to evolve through both conflict and triumph. We can learn from our mistakes.
During my thirty-five years as a teacher of English, I tried to come up with themes for composition that would challenge my students to think, even if sometimes painfully, about what life might mean in personal and collective ways. The following assignment was one of the most unusual I created in order to encourage my writers to look at their own lives with critical but grateful eyes and further appreciate what it meant to be in this world. The core idea came from our reading Thornton Wilder’s play, “Our Town” in which Emily dies in childbirth but is able to come back for a little while as a spirit to observe life going on without her, creating an intense appreciation of life itself. For her it was too late. Some may think the idea is a bit creepy at first, but I was amazed over the years at the depth and beauty of the resulting work it yielded from my students.
The title of this writing narrative is “Too Late.”
Write a narrative of at least four pages describing how it feels to come back as a spirit after your own death. The following restrictions will apply:
1. You can see only in black and white.
2. No one can see you, hear you, or feel your presence in any way.
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 time and place you wish just by thinking of when and where you want to be.
7. You may “travel” to any times of your life that you wish to revisit in order to observe again whatever happened, but you will be only a visitor or “outsider,” because these times would be just shadows of 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 own funeral if you wish and describe in detail the reactions you think might come from your family and friends. What would it feel like to see life go on without you like a black and white TV show? What and whom would you miss the most and why? 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 taken life for granted in certain ways (not having appreciated all the simple but beautiful things that life gives us). Use the word “I” as you describe the whole thing and make it sound real.
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 maybe to appreciate a little more that life is a miraculous gift. JB
