Do Over

“Are these really the Pearly Gates and are you Saint Peter?”

“Welcome William, and yes to both your questions.”

“What a relief!  I wasn’t sure that I would qualify to be here.”

“Why were you worried?  You lived a life that many who were sent the Other Way would have envied and now wished that they had led.”

“But I’ve done things and left things undone in my life that I now deeply regret and wish that I could do over.”

“Perfection is only for our Supreme Being.  Remember, there were even angels who fell from grace because of arrogance and pride and were banished to Hell.  And I denied the Christ three times out of fear and cowardice and yet was forgiven.  As has been said, ‘to err is human.’  And fortunately, ‘to forgive is Divine.’” 

“Still I have regrets.  Is there any way I could help my mortal self be a better me?” 

“A do-over.  You are a good soul to wish that you could have led an even better life than you did.  Most people are just delighted that they made it here and are happy to leave their earthly past behind. But you do recognize there is an element of pride in your wish?”

“But is there a way?”

“Yours is an infrequent but not unique request.  Yes there is a way, but there are rules and stipulations.  You cannot physically return because that would mean there would be two of you occupying the same space and time, an impossibility in the scheme of the universe.  Nor can you return as an astral body, since if the earthly you saw you that would give him foreknowledge of the after life and influence his exercise of Free Will.”

“What then?”

“You will be permitted to return to visit your younger self when he is in REM sleep.  To speak to him then, to persuade him to alter his future behavior.  Thus you will neither give him knowledge that there is after-life nor affect his Free Will, since it will be his choice to heed or not what you say to him.  And unlike ordinary dreams, he will retain memory of your visit when he awakens.”

“Will it work?”

“If I told you, that would influence the exercise of your Free Will.”

“It seems so complicated, but thank you.  It’s worth a try.”

“No need to thank me.  It’s all in the rules.  And in what guise you choose to appear in his dream will be up to you.  The Gates are open for you.  Enter.  You may start whenever you wish.”

Time has no meaning in Heaven.  Sometime after William got over his initial awe that he was actually there, joyfully reunited with his mother and father, he began to pay visits in dreams to his mortal self.

Jonah, his best friend in middle school, had moved to another city across the continent.  They said that they would stay in contact but, after a few months, he ghosted Jonah because he thought, ‘what’s the use?  I’ll never see him again.’  Jonah continued to send messages but he never replied.  Years later he ran into Jonah at a meeting who told him how hurt he had been by William’s rejection.  

William decided to appear to his teen-self as their mother who admonished teen-William for neglecting his best friend’s messages:  ‘Jonah was your best friend, how can you just cut him off without even an explanation?  it’s a really terribly cruel thing to do.  how would you feel if he did that to you?’  “But Mom, I’ll never see him again, so why waste my time and his?” the teen replied in his dream.

In college, he bought a stolen copy of a final exam in a course where he was barely getting a ‘C’.  William appeared to his college-self as his father who was a sternly honest man:  ‘you are tempted to use that stolen exam to cheat, something I have tried to teach you never to do.  though you may receive a high grade, you will always remember that you cheated and violated the honor code and it will linger on your conscience.’  (As indeed it had.) “Dad, I have to keep up my GPA so that I’ll have a chance at grad school,” college-William replied. 

There was the time he attended a convention alone in Los Vegas and ran into Roxanne, his former girl friend from high school, who was at the same meeting.  Roxanne had been pretty in high school and was now a mature beauty, divorced for two years.  The third day of the meeting, they had dinner together to catch up and talk about old times and, both well lubricated by wine by dinner’s end, when Roxanne invited him to her room he accepted.  But at her door he stopped, saying ‘I’m sorry, I just can’t.  It’s not you, it’s me.  I have a wife I love; kids.  I’m sorry.  I’d better go.’  He turned and left quickly with Roxanne loudly cursing him.  He never told his wife, but always carried a tremendous feeling of guilt about the near-betrayal.  

So he decided to appeared to convention-William in a dream on the first night of the meeting as his teenaged older daughter Cindy.  ’dad, you once thought you loved Roxanne in high school, but now you love mom.  please don’t hurt mom by falling again for Roxanne.  even if no one else ever knows, you always will.’  William woke with a start, disturbed by the dream.  But later that day, he made dinner reservations for two.

There were other times he appeared in the dreams of his mortal self—once as an older William saying directly that ‘I know what will happen if you don’t do this.  take my word for it.  i’m you in the future.’  Too weird, thought his younger self on wakening.  He also appeared several times as a good friend and another time as a business associate.  And even as his fiancee who would become his wife.

Saint Peter checked on William to see how the interventions were working.  

“It’s very disappointing,” William said.  “No matter what I’ve said and tried, my mortal self continues to do the same things.”

“What about that time in Vegas?” asked Saint Peter.  “You didn’t yield to temptation.”

“But I didn’t heed the warning and went ahead to arrange for dinner that led up to being tempted.  At Roxanne’s door I didn’t stop because I remembered the warning.  I stopped because there was still a shred of decency that cut through the wine and lust.”

“And what do you conclude from this?” asked Saint Peter.

“That the past cannot be changed from the vantage point of the future?”

“Yes, you are right.  Because even a small change in the past would have cascading effects that could alter what follows and produce different futures.  History is non-malleable.”

“I guess that means that our mortal selves had better get it right the first time, because there are no do-overs,” William said.