061: Trust

It took two days of intense practicing for Shawn to master the chords she taught him, the strums and the basic picking. But he was diligent, and Maille worked him hard, coming every day twice a day and listening to him, helping him. Sometimes he concentrated so hard he seemed to be in a different world, and sometimes he was angry with her, especially when it came time for her to leave. 

Sometimes he let her glimpse inside him.

"Are you scared, Shawn?" she said softly once while she sat behind him on the bed, leaning against his pillows. It was easier to position herself directly behind him as he played, so she could correct him.

His strumming didn't stop. He didn't answer.

"I would be. I think. Even though I know there's nothing to be afraid of, and that all my relatives and friends will be on the other side waiting to greet me. I still think from this side of it all I would be afraid." she said, contemplating how she might feel in his shoes.

"l don't have any relatives and friends." he said.

"Well, you do and you just don't know them. But once the veil is lifted, you 'II recognize them. It'll be Hey, grandpa, Hey, grandma, Hey Uncle So and So!" she leaned over and placed her hand above his on the neck, showing him the placement of the fingering he was missing.

"How do you know? Maybe there will be nothing. I'll just be gone and no one will ever know I existed."

"Right." Maille scoffed. "I'm no one. I never knew you existed."

"You 'll forget me too.''

''Nope. I brought a camera, to take your picture. I 'll never forget you. I 'll stick it up in the bathroom and every morning when I put my makeup on, there you will be watching me smear my mascara."

That got a laugh. A chuckle. "But you don 't know what it will be like. There probably isn't another side. We just float away into nothingness."

"Nothingness? Why would God bother to go to all this trouble if that's all there was? Nothingness?" she rubbed his painfully thin bony shoulder. "I can tell you that He planned it all better than that, Shawn.."

"God?"

"Yeah, you know, the Big Guy Upstairs. God." she heard him stop playing and turned to look at her with those pale watery eyes.

"I don't believe in God."

Maille scoffed. "Fine. But I bet you have no basis for your belief and I could prove it to you in no time flat because you haven't really spent any time studying about it. Look at this guitar. See how it fits together? What if the neck weren't connected to the body, the frets weren't marked and the strings were all loose on the ground? If I stood up on the bed and dropped all the parts on the ground do you think they could assemble themselves into the guitar that you're holding?"

He looked at her and then at the ground and then at the guitar. "No. That's stupid."

"What would have to happen for the guitar to be the guitar?"

"Somebody would have to assemble it."

"And once they did, what would you call that person?"

He thought a moment. "A guitar maker."

"Would you call that person smart?'' 

"Yeah."

"Would you think they must have some experience with making guitars?"

"Yes."

"Would you consider that they must have at one time studied a plan to make guitars?"

"Yeah."

"Would a person like that probably know a lot about making other things too?" 

"Probably."

"And would that person, probably in your opinion, since they did fix your guitar, be willing to show you how to fix another guitar?"

"Usually, that's how it goes."

Maille leaned forward, her arm around his chest from behind, she whispered in his ear, then a soft caress. "That's what God did. He saw all the pieces, including us all around in the universe, and he organized it all and planned it all . And then he decided to show us how it was done so that we could do it ourselves next time. He has the plan. The plan of happiness. And if we follow the plan, we can become like him."

"Like God?"

Maille nodded against him, smiling. She gently hugged his arm above the guitar. "He's our Father, Shawn. He's the maker. And he knows how it's all done. He knows each one of us, because be organized us. Wouldn't the guitar maker know all the parts? Yeah. Well, there is a God. All this couldn't have happened by itself, not possible, anymore than the guitar could have assembled itself without assistance. And you know what? God loves you. He loves you so much. He would not have sent you here and then let you float off into space. He's got a plan for you."

"And dying is part of the plan?"

"Sure, earth life is only a speck in the eons of time, Shawn. There is so much else to do. More of the plan to live. Dying just seems like a big deal, and it's a bit scary because it's unknown , but that's natural. We are all afraid of things we've never done before. That's why I said it would be scary to me. I've never done it, but I know it's okay. It's part of the plan. And I know God loves me and wants to help me through the plan. He wouldn't have sent me here if there wasn't a plan. Just wouldn't have done it. Nothing in this universe tells me that things are done without purpose."

"But what else is there to do?" his voice was small now, warily hopeful. Maille kept her arm around him, feeling him relax back against her.

"So much!" she whispered joyfully. "Everything you didn't get to do here. There won't be any sickness there, or any pain, or any bad stuff. You'll be free to do all the things you wanted to do here and couldn't."

"Like rock climbing?" 

"Yeah!'

"Where? On another world?"

"I don't know."

"I thought you knew everything."

"Where would be the fun in that? No surprises. And anyway, I brought you a surprise."

"What surprise?"

She rolled off the bed and pushed a large box loaded with fancy looking equipment toward his side of the bed.

"What's that?" he leaned over his guitar to see it.

"Recording equipment. I got Michael to loan it to me. It's very expensive. They use it mainly for recording live stuff at concerts. I thought I'd show you how to use it, then when you're ready, we can record ."

"Hey Maille?" he was looking at her now with eyes so full of hope it made her heart wince for all the let downs, all the sadness he'd gone through. "When I hear my songs in my head ... well .... I hear you singing them."

Maille cocked her head to one side and raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?" she asked with a tentative smile.

He nodded.

"So you figure I must be coming back?"

"I guess so."

"Yeah." she went to him then and hugged him. "I guess so too."

*****