I have had doubts since I was six years old. Serious doubts. The kind that keep you up at night.

It was then that I had an experience that even my own mother didn’t believe. I got Scarlet Fever with a temperature of 106 and left my body. I wrote about it HERE.

My mother insisted that it was just a dream. Her reaction made me keep it to myself and think about it. I never talked about it again until I was grown.

But it never left me.

Along with the doubts, I also knew what happened to me. I knew it like you know gravity exists after a hard fall, like you know that fire is hot, like you know your name.

It was real in a way that even real life isn’t, more intense, clearer.

The Tree

I began to think about the tree limb that had brushed past my face and it puzzled me. The pine tree in our front yard was as real as things get to a child. We played under it, sat in its shade, climbed it, hung upside down on it. It was our playhouse and hide away. It had rough grey bark, white sap and was covered in sharp, stiff needles.

But the limb that brushed by my face was soft and delicate, so much so that it took me by surprise. It clung to my face. I knew that pine tree and the needles were anything but soft. It bothered me. Maybe the whole thing was a dream.

Investigation

So, I decided to find out. The only way I knew was to climb to the top of the tree, a definite no-no and scary to boot. I had never climbed that high but that didn’t stop me. I had to find out.

I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. The screen door slammed behind me. I strode down the porch steps with purpose, grabbed the lowest limb, hoisted myself up the scratchy bark and started climbing.

My older brother was watching and when I got higher than we usually went he got concerned. He yelled for me to stop but I didn’t. I just kept climbing. I don’t know if Mom heard the commotion or if he called her but she appeared on the porch.

Busted

With her hand shading her eyes Mom looked up and ordered me to come down. By now it was clear that I was in trouble but I had never known my mother to climb pine trees so I kept going. I figured I might not get another chance. I had to know.

Then my father came home. I could see the parental conference below. To my great relief, the man who told me so many stories about climbing trees said to leave me alone and yelled up for me to be careful. Thanks Dad.

Fear

Now the only problem to overcome was fear. I was looking down on the roof of the house, higher than I’d ever been. My hands were shaky and covered in sticky sap. The limbs were thin enough to break and the tree top swayed before I poked my head through near the crown.

There, glowing emerald green in the afternoon sun, were succulent, tender shoots of new growth. I looked down the limbs from my perch and the end of all of the upper limbs were the same. There were no sharp spikes. They were cool and soft as feathers.

I was amazed. The lower limbs where we climbed never looked or felt anything like it.

This meant my mother was wrong. At six years old this was enough of a revelation. I hid the fact in my brain and didn’t talk about it but the memory burned brightly and I thought about it a lot.

If the treetop discovery had been true then what of the other things I had learned things during my experience? Things I had no way of knowing at the time.

  • I’d learned that the branches on the top of the pine tree were covered in soft new growth without sharp needles.
  • I saw the amazing colorful view of Earth when TV was black and white and the first U.S. orbit was a year away.
  • I had learned that the sky in space was pitch black in the middle of a bright, sunny day and it filled with steady pinpoints of light instead of flickering stars.
  • I had seen my house and the yard and the world from a far different perspective than a small six-year-old boy understands.

How did I know?

New, true and verifiable information doesn’t just appear in your brain. There was something more here than a fevered dream. But what?

I never explained to anyone why I had to climb that tree. I didn’t want to disagree with my Mom so I kept it all to myself. The mystery and wonder of it all simmered for more than a decade before I ever heard a similar story.

I had no idea how many stories were to come.

 

Photo Credit: Black_Claw via Compfight cc