Lost Islands

Some weeks have personalities of their own.  And so do some weekends.  Last Friday night while driving home from dinner with my daughter, I received a call on my bluetooth.  When I said hello the policeman on the other end asked me to identify myself.  They found my number on the cell phone of a friend who was unresponsive in an ambulance and I was the last person he had called.

Fast forward to Monday where I sat across from my friend as spring twilight flooded my upstairs sitting room with the grainy other-worldly light that comes just before dark – both of us a bit shell-shocked and misty-eyed.  You just never know.  Fortunately, he is ok but for 24 hours, no one was quite sure. Apparently, a seizure will do that to a person.

As we waited for our dinner to finish cooking in the oven, the conversation drifted to other things and I began telling him about an article I recently read regarding the real-life island that J.M. Barrie visited while writing Peter Pan.   I wondered if the island had been used as the setting for the lost boys’ sanctuary, as was so magically depicted in the enduring tale.  Barrie visited the place over and over and once said that the call of the island can only be heard by those for whom it was meant…

I felt compelled to stay by my friend’s hospital bed all weekend.  I also felt that if I could speak to him up close, somehow I could make him wake up because in my heart, I believed he was not having a stroke but perhaps a seizure.  When they finally allowed me to approach, I leaned in and told him I was there and that everything was going to be ok.  My words did the trick because he immediately turned his face towards mine and with his eyes still closed, smiled widely.  I heard one of the doctor’s murmur, “That was a pretty good response”.

Our weekend was a lost one although blessedly, one with a happy ending.  And Barrie’s observation has stayed with me all this week long … sometimes words too, can really only be heard by those for whom they are meant.