Thoughts on the "Lost" Season Finale (Spoilers)

I'll admit that I've been inexorably losing faith in "Lost" this year, and I've hated that feeling.

This show in its first two seasons was fresh, innovate, densely themed and possessed strong, intelligent writing. It's characters were multi-faceted, its situations unpredictable and its dramatic moments some of the best I've ever seen on television. It was, in short, a marvel and a maverick on modern network television; something I never thought I'd see again, and I wanted so badly for it to continue to be so.

This season, for whatever reason, the show just didn't seem as sharp. The characters seemed to lose their way a bit, literally and figuratively. The once dynamic character interactions disappeared with the influx of new, less interesting characters and the show seemed to meander plotwise. Most distressing was the loss of that sense of fate that permeated the first two seasons. Yes, those years had death and violence and conflict to be sure, but underlying all that were questions of purpose and destiny. I missed the philosophical debates between Jack and John Locke, the brother-like love/hate relationship between Jack and Sawyer, the feeling of "live together, die alone" that characterized the first two seasons. This season we had incidence after incidence of confrontations with the mysterious "Others" that always put our castaways on the losing end of things. It was as if they were just puppets; to the Others specifically and to the island generally. Their every strategy was anticipated in advance and turned against them. Their every victory was pulled out from under them and thrown in their faces as an example of their ultimate powerlessness. The Others knew EVERYTHING about them and they knew NOTHING about the Others or the island, and the Others used that knowledge time and again to gain the upper hand. It's an old and successful writing technique to deny your characters the very things they want and then craft your drama from that denial, and it's a perfectly reasonable technique to use. But with week after week of nothing but torture and psychological manipulation and imprisonment, I almost felt like a sadist watching these people I genuinely liked (admittedly, because of the strength of the writing) suffer time and again.

The depressing direction of the narrative wasn't the only problem. With the new emphasis on the Others and their connection to the island, many supporting characters were practically ignored. Sayid had little or nothing to do until the last six episodes, Claire fell off the map entirely, Charlie was totally useless as a character until the revelation of his impending death, Hurley's connection to the numbers was completely forgotten as he became little more than a "team cheerleader" for the castaways. Jin and Sun basically had no plot whatsoever other than to help try and rescue the kidnapped castaways and mull over Sun's pregnancy. In short, the entire concept of a group of people thrown together by fate having to survive on a strange island in the Pacific while not killing each other was largely abandoned. You can't very well explore a group dynamic when there literally ISN'T a group anymore, just individuals struggling with their personal dramas.

I realize that the introduction of the Others was very popular in some circles, and it wasn't a total loss. The character of Ben was and is a great villain, alternately lying and divying out small doses of truth as he pleases and all the while using his knowledge to manipulate everyone around him into doing just what he wants. The character is played with a kind of manic, messianic glee by Michael Emerson, who had he been born about 30 years earlier would have made a great Norman Bates. But for me, the character of Juliet was rather force fed to us, as it seemed the writers needed another complicating factor in the ongoing Jack/Kate/Sawyer triangle, having tried (and failed) to make Ana Lucia function well in this role. Elizabeth Mitchell did all right with the role, as week by week she made us wonder if she could be trusted or not, and we came to see the layers of this woman who would by turns, seem to hurt and help our heroes. But for me the emphasis she enjoyed was too strong and too quick and it was at the expense of many of the supporting characters I listed above. I think that creators always make a mistake when they forcefeed new characters to an audience that is already quite content with the established characters. It's better to gradually introduce the new characters and allow them to win over the audience (or not) in an atmosphere that doesn't seem too pushy or contrived.

Unlike a lot of "Lost" viewers, I was not terribly distressed by the lack of significant answers to some of the larger mysteries. I understand that revealing too much too soon is self-defeating for the show; once these mysteries, a core part of the show, are solved, there's less and less reason to tune in every week. I was more upset by the leaps in logic and the character inconsistencies. Would Jack really have bonded so closely with Juliet in the two or so days he spent with the Others after Kate and Sawyer escaped? Why didn't the castaways ever sit down as a group and share information about all the odd things that had happened to them and try to come to some conclusions? Why did Kate, who seemed to be such an assertive character in the first two seasons, seem so passive this year? Yes, she led the rescue effort for Jack, but most of her on air time this year seemed to be spent looking sadly at either Sawyer or Jack. She seemed to have little or no relationship with any of the other cast members. Would Sawyer and Sayid really have been so easily cowed by Juliet's threats to reveal their pasts? Even if you say yes, what about the forty or so other survivors? Wouldn't ONE of them have said, "Hey, we're not going to trust this lady just on Jack's say so. She's part of a group of people who killed, kidnapped, and tortured us. Either she provides some answers or we throw her to the polar bears."?

Another successful element of the show's first two years, the flashbacks that revealed key moments of each character's pasts, seemed less sucessful this year as well. We didn't learn much from any of the new flashbacks, except maybe Locke's , Desmond's, and those of the Others. Perhaps it was just burn out from so many successful early flashbacks, but most of this season's seemed weak and honestly, unnecessary.

All that said, "Lost" remained essential viewing. When done right, it has the ability to knock you onto your seat dramatically and make you well up inside at the same time. There is something timeless about the story of a band of imperfect, damaged, but essentially well meaning human beings struggling to survive in a hostile environment and perhaps find redemption in the process that echoes our own experience. We root for these people, all of them, despite or perhaps because of their flaws. We see ourselves in them, and we want them to ultimately succeed. We don't want to see them hurt or disappointed. We cheered Jack's incredible power play early in the year that allowed Kate and Sawyer to escape; we worried about Charlie and Desmond's predictions of doom, we were crushed when Mr. Eko was, well, crushed, after his moment of self-validation and justification, we booed and hissed at Ben's Machievellian plotting and we cheered when the castaways finally took the upper hand in the season finale. Our heart broke when Jack saw Kate with Sawyer, when we discovered the truth about Jin's pregnancy and when Charlie made his final sacrifice. It's not as if the season was a total loss. But when placed in comparison to the first two years, Season Three was oddly paced, sorely lacking in character interaction and wildly inconsistent in terms of writing precision.

The finale saw several key developments for the show. It gave us the presumably final conflict between the castaways and the Others, it featured what seems to be the impending rescue of the castaways, it was the first episode to use a "flash forward" device as opposed to a flashback, and it contained the deaths of several characters, including Charlie.

The war with the Others was very well done and paced terrifically. We had a race against time with Jack leading the survivors of 815 to the radio tower, while we simultaneously had Ben learning of their exodus and planning to intercept them. Back on the beach, Jin, Sayid and Bernard lie in wait for the Others hoping to ambush them by blowing up the dynamite in the empty huts and kill them. Still elsewhere, Charlie and Desmond went on a mission to deactivate the jamming frequency in the Looking Glass hatch and encountered two female Others who were ready to violently protect it. All of these threads finally tied together in a climax that left Charlie, Naomi, Tom, a handful of unidentified others, the two Looking Glass guards, and maybe, hopefully, Mikhail, dead, Ben beaten and broken and the rescue helicopter presumably on the way. Several characters faced agonizing decisions. Jack had to decide whether to give Ben the cell phone and save Sayid, Jin and Bernard in the process. Knowing Ben is a pathological liar and that this might be the only chance they'd ever have of actual rescue, Jack refused to give him the phone and, as far as he knew, let Ben kill the three captured 815 survivors. (Later, it was revealed they were unharmed, for reasons left unanswered). Sawyer and Juliet both decided to risk possible death by returning to the camp to learn the fate of the shooters, as both characters realized they owed the community this gesture and hoped to regain (or in Juliet's case, gain for the first time) their trust. Hurley, despite warnings from Sawyer, chose to follow the two and ultimately helped to rescue them. Sayid, Jin and Bernard made the hard choice to stay behind on what was basically a suicide mission in order to safeguard the community and not compromise the overall plan. Desmond offered to go to the Looking Glass in Charlie's place, hoping to spare his friend's life and escape the destiny his visions had been pointing toward. But perhaps most poignant of all was Charlie's decision not only to go on the mission because in doing so he hoped to ensure Claire's safe rescue, but his insistence on going into the Looking Glass despite Desmond's vision and his offer. His love for Claire and Aaron and concern over their well being won out over any thought of self-preservation.

It was gratifying to see so many characters' nobler instincts coming to the surface during this critical time in the survivors' lives. So much of this season has been downbeat and defeatist in its tone, with the Others seeming to constantly hold the upper hand over our heroes because of their knowledge of the island and the 815 survivors as well. Every power play the "Losties" made seemed to be either successfully countered, negated or even anticipated and used by the Others for their own purposes. It was not a season that conveyed a great deal of free will on the part of our heroes.

Unfortunately, the final five minutes of the "flashforward" which revealed that this chapter in Jack's life did NOT take place before the crash but after the rescue, seemed to dilute that feeling of ascendency and self-determination. Here we had a post-rescue Jack, drunken and drug addicted, pausing from a suicide attempt only to save a young mother and her son who had crashed because of his presence on a bridge. He's depressed because of a death he sees in the paper (the identity of the person unknown), but even before that he seems to be plagued with guilt and regret over leaving the island, flying all over and praying that the flights crash and put him back on the island. He's apparently not with Kate, who mentions a mysterious "he" that will be waiting for her (perhaps Sawyer, perhaps not). In general, he's a mess.

Are we to think that Jack and his decision to not trust Ben was "wrong"? That he should have believed a man who had kidnapped, murdered and tortured his people? This ending, depressing and full of the futility that characterized the entire third season, seems to undercut if not negate the tremendous acts of heroism by the 815 survivors. Was it all for naught? Were the rescuers evil, or did the whole thing go awry in some way? That's the impression I was left with, and it angers me. Sure, we need a cliffhanger, especially for a show that's destined not to return for eight months, but this continual "pulling the chair out from underneath our heroes" wears on my soul. I hardly expect a "happy ending" at this point in the series, which apparently has 48 episodes left in its overall arc, but once again we as viewers seem to be being toyed with a bit.

I am not one of those that demands or even wants answers to everything right away. I don't mind that we still don't know what the smoke monster is or what the numbers are yet. But as time goes along we are getting more and more mysteries introduced before any of the old ones are fully explained. For instance, I'm guessing that the writers assume the "hatch" questions have been dealt with, but that begs several questions. Who exactly was Kazinski? What was the true purpose of the hatch? What was the "incident" mentioned in the film? Why did the hatch implode and if it did how did Desmond and Locke and Eko survive? Maybe we're going to get answers to these questions, but it's been over an entire season since that hatch has even been mentioned and give the direction of the show now I can't see them backpedalling now and saying "Hey, let's take a break from this "flash forward" stuff and the rescue gone bad and talk a bit about that hatch thing". And it's not the end of the world if they don't, it's just another indication of the kind of coyness and inconsistency that's bugged me this season. The creators have asserted that the show has truly been planned in advance but so many developments seem to belie that claim; the quick introduction and equally quick deaths of most of the "Tailies", the departure of Michael and Walt, the overwhelming emphasis on the Others, the odd absence of even any MENTION of the numbers this year all seem to point in another direction.

With the dust still settling after the startling events of the finale, we are left with many, many questions. Is that future we see "the shadow of things that will be" or "the shadow of things that might be"? Can it be changed? Should it be changed? What happened with the rescue? Was Ben lying about the rescuers? Were they Dharma people looking for their own and assuming that anyone left there was a "Hostile" that needed to be purged? Why is Juliet not in the future? Why did Jack talk about his father as if he were alive in the future? Who was in that coffin? Who exactly are the Hostiles? What was their purpose and motivation? How was Richard basically the same age 35 years ago? Was Naomi lying, evil, a dupe, or none of these? Why did Locke feel it necessary to kill her instead of just tackling her and taking the phone for himself? Why didn't anyone step forward and pound the crap out of him when he did so? Is Locke to be the new leader of the surviving Others? Who or what is Jacob?

Truth to tell, I'll be back in January when the show is. I still care enough about the characters and their fate to tune in, and that's what the creators have counted on, I suppose. I just wish I thought they were playing fair with me. I maintained early on that the show is really about destiny and redemption and the way in which opposing forces combine to make meaning. Fate and free will, science and faith, good and evil, lightness and darkness, fear and bravery all are present and all combine to produce characters and situations which still excite and intrigue us. I hope the writers remember and remain true to these themes and at the same time try to be consistent with the narrative and logic of the show.

If it doesn't it's destined to be remembered as another ground breaking TV show that started out strong and original and with a true vision that overstayed it's welcome and "lost" its way.

The Way of the Warrior

In one of the many dichotomies that seem to define me, I'm a person who has never really had a serious physical fight in his life past the age of puberty, while simultaneously being someone who totally respects and reveres the military.

Maybe that's not totally dichotomous. I guess it's perfectly plausible to respect the talents that others have that are lacking in yourself. That is, while I might not possess certain skills myself I can certainly appreciate their necessity in the grand scheme of things and honor those who do possess them. I'm not a very big person, clocking in around 150-160 pounds depending on the time of year. I'm in fairly good shape but I couldn't handle 140 degree days and 72 hour shifts of sleeplessness, even when I was in my 20s. I'm small boned, have a heart murmur, and in general just don't have that kind of innate hardiness that many of the military guys seem to have.

This difference between what I know I couldn't do and what I also know needs to be done is reflected in my attitude towards the military in general. I wish no one had to have a military force. It'd be great if everyone in the world got along and trusted each other and solved whatever conflicts there were without violence or the threat of it. Unfortunately, we all know this isn't the way the world works. I hate killing and fighting, and it pains me terribly to see the daily news reports of soldiers dying, from all countries. It's a great pity that we as a race haven't evolved beyond that.

But the unavoidable truth is that we haven't. The strong preys on the weak, and the weak must either defend itself or die. Bullies and would-be bullies of every stripe abound all over the globe and to not acknowledge that and prepare for it is not only foolish, it's immoral.

So these are the thoughts I have this Memorial Day weekend, where most everyone is busy barbecuing and boating and wearing short shorts and settling into the modern American holiday mode of trying to do too much at once while somehow managing to forget what exactly the holiday is supposed to be about. I don't party, or have relatives over, or barbecue. That's not a huge sacrifice because I'm not crazy about any of those things anyway (well, some of my relatives are OK). But I do remember the fallen warriors on this day. In World War II, my dad and three uncles served, both at home and overseas. My mother's brother served during the Vietnam War. I know those who lost loved ones in wars. War is horrible, unthinkable business and no one aside from lunatics wants any part of it. But what do you do when there are no other alternatives? What do you do when you are attacked and your very life and way of life are threatened? What do you do when your children's safety is put in jeopardy?

Those who have served, past and present, are the reason we are all able to vote, complain about our elected officials, seek work and love and happiness anywhere we want, and pursue whatever religious beliefs we choose to. I fully understand that the necessity of war is in the eye of the beholder and that several of America's wars have been and are hotly debated. But regardless of the wisdom of any of these wars, the motivation and courage of the men and women fighting them has remained unassailable. They are willing to put their lives at risk, to pay the ultimate sacrifice in order to ensure the safety of their families, their friends and neighbors, their nation. I can really think of no higher motivation than to risk your own life for what you believe in, and these people do it day in and day out, often for years or even decades. The ones interred in cemeteries all over the country and overseas lost their lives in the service of protecting others, throwing themselves in harm's way so that the rest of us can stay safe and free.

No matter what your political stripe, you would not have a beating heart within your chest if you didn't respect and honor that service.

I wish we didn't need warriors. I wish the world wasn't so brutal and cruel and savage. Maybe someday man will no longer feel the need to resort to violence to solve it's differences. But until that day, someone has to stand and resist the dark forces that seek to keep us all trapped in a cycle of violence and conquest. Someone has to make sure that the dreamers among us live long enough to make those changes we all want.

So tomorrow I'll visit my local cemetery and think a while and give my silent thanks. I'll remember that some things are truly worth dying for, and I'll thank Heaven for all those who have done so.

Five Reasons to Get up in the Morning

1) My cats need me
2) I might still have some purpose left; helping others, learning something important, discovering myself.
3) I have friends who do care about me.
4) Life has been given to me; wasting it would be a sin.
5) I don't want to let my family, particularly my parents, down.

Every Thought That's In My Head, Someone Else Has Said

I'm a child of the media, like a lot of people my age. I love to watch TV, listen to the radio, go to movies, read magazines and surf the Internet. I love being entertained but I also love information. It's fun to learn about new things, people, places, schools of thought in all areas. I enjoy keeping current with the news in all areas; politics, sports, social issues, mass media, weird news stories, the whole gamut.


There's a bit of an inherent danger in that though. I'm a writer, and a writer has to be original in his ideas. You have to constantly come up with new and unique themes and ways in which to present them. Anyone can type out old, stale ideas that have been used and rehashed over and over, whether they are essays, poems, short stories, reviews or novels. A truly successful writer has not only his own voice but his own fully realized original concepts to create.

In order to ensure this originality, you have to not only have a good imagination but you also have to be sure that no one has "beat you to the punch" so to speak, by posting or publishing those ideas before you have a chance to. In this day of blogging and self publishing, that's getting to be an increasingly difficult task. The instant anything happens anywhere in the world someone is commenting on it. It's almost impossible to see a movie these days without being tipped off to key plot developments by trailers, spoilers or just plain old word of mouth. Blogs are multiplying like cells in a Petri dish, so much so that even if you insulate yourself from them chances are at some point you will see your "original" thought has already been explored by someone, somewhere.

Should all of this be totally dispiriting? Does it mean that it's impossible to ensure an original creative thought? Well, no, though the new technology certainly does complicate things. I guess one way to guard against "thought duplication" or even being influenced by others' ideas is to completely ignore and avoid news in all forms; network and cable TV news, internet news, blogs, radio. But there's an obvious Catch-22 here; if you isolate yourself from the world and its goings on, how are you going to be able to write about it, or at least anything that is relevant? Sure you don't have to be a news junkie in order to write a love poem or an elegy, but in order to give your imagination fuel you can't constantly consume stale sources of brain food. Inspiration is very often fired by current events, and there isn't a writer alive who isn't influenced by other writers' content as well as style. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; it's only when the influence begins to drown out your personal voice or vision that the exposure turns from inspiration into contamination.

So what's the ultimate answer? You can't hide yourself from reality in order to ensure that your ideas are truly your own, and writing from a vacuum is destined to produce empty material that may be original runs the risk of also being hollow and detached from relevancy. But a writer also must be able to stand on his own, create his own voice and be assured that he's not just rehashing what others have said before.

Maybe the only reasonable response is to write what you want while being completely aware that you are being influenced and using that to your own advantage. We've all heard that there are only about seven different stories to be told anyway, but that they can be told in nearly infinite ways. Perhaps modern writers should apply this logic to their daily labors, choosing whatever topics they want and making the profusion of information at their disposal to their own advantage. I am limited to the amount of colors I have available to paint my house, for instance, but ultimately, it's the WAY that I paint that house that makes it an individual effort, that puts my own unique stamp upon the task. Similarly, just as I may only have such much editorial or narrative content to choose my topics from, it's my own individual slant on that content that makes it worthwhile. The fact that my neighbor may have used a light blue paint in his house doesn't mean that if I use it I'm somehow just mimicking him. Maybe my shade is just a tad darker or maybe I used a different base, or maybe I used it in my living room whereas his is in the kitchen. And while my neighbor may write a futuristic detective novel, his may be purely inspired by the works of Ray Bradbury while mine might be a means by which I'm exploring something that happened in my childhood.

There may truly be "nothing new under the sun", but just as our own interactions with nature function to not only put our own stamp upon the world but also remake it in a sense, so too does our mining what we see and hear in our daily lives (including that which comes to us via the mass media) function to individualize our own work, and ourselves.

Beyond the First Amendment

I really hate always being able to see two sides of the same issue. It'd be so much easier to just pick a side, argue for it and go to bed secure in the knowledge that the other side was wrong, I was right, and that was it.

But that almost never happens to me.

Take this "Opie and Anthony" controversy. Two schools of thought are competing for my time and dammit to hell, they are both right.

OK, so last week two crude shock jocks (sorry, that's redundant) had some homeless guy on their show and during his visit he ranted about how he'd like to rape Condoleeza Rice and Laura Bush, also taking time to insult the Queen of England while he was at it. The jocks didn't bring up the ladies in the topic, but they didn't exactly express disgust or outrage at the man's comments either. As is the wont with talk radio, they yukked it up and egged him on, hoping to appeal to whatever Neanderthal demographic they generally target. These are the same guys that got fired from their last job for encouraging two listeners to have sex in a church, so we're not exactly dealing with what I'd call "high brow" content. Apparently they have apologized for the comments and now it's a waiting game to see what the owner of XM Radio (who Opie and Anthony work for), CBS, will do regarding them. As it comes so quickly on the heels of the Don Imus mess, everyone is equating the two situations and debating what should happen.

I'm not sure what I think should happen. I don't think they should be taken off the air for the comments, as hideous as they were. Though I would never pay a penny to hear their show, it is in fact not a public show and can only be accessed by subscription. Their fans are no doubt well aware of the kind of content they produce and in fact probably subscribe because they WANT to hear exactly that type of content. It's not my thing, certainly, but it's also not my place (or the government's) to decide what people can choose to listen to. I watch and listen to things that would no doubt raise the hackles of a lot of other people, but as long as I am choosing to do so freely, not forcing anyone else to do so and paying for it out of my own pocket, I hope and expect to be able to do so in a free country. If they were on the public airwaves, that would be different. Children would be able to hear the show, and people who hadn't subscribed but just randomly came across it as well. This is not the case here. If the subscribers are fine listening to this type of thing, so be it. I'll just shake my head, say "no thanks" and move on.

However, if there is enough outcry among the subscribers, CBS is perfectly within it's rights to give these guys the heave ho. It's a market driven economy and if their comments compromise CBS's profits, they have the absolute right to fire them just as the local grocer has the right to fire a cashier who is chasing customers away with his filthy personal hygiene. Responding to customer's needs is just good business.

None of that means that I don't find this all really depressing though. Certainly the jocks (and everyone in America) has the RIGHT to say whatever they want in any way they want as long as it doesn't endanger anyone else (i.e. the "fire in a crowded theater" situation). That doesn't mean that it's desirable to consistently reach for the lowest common denominator in our discourse, however. Time and time again we see ourselves having to defend the most godawful, venal sort of content on the basis of the First Amendment and while I will always continue to do so, that doesn't mean I have to like it. Just because you have the right to say something doesn't mean that you SHOULD say it. We're in an age of absolutely no self restraint, where the delicacy and nuance of reasonable conversation is rapidly eroding and being replaced by "morning zoos", raving political blogs and vein popping, verbally violent talk show hosts. No one listens to each other; everyone is too busy trying to shout over the other person's arguments to actually hear them. People are objectified and ridiculed in the name of "humor". Racist and sexist jokes are back in vogue because like everything else we covet these days, they are easy, cheap and require no thought or effort. Instead of booking a senator or a religious leader, you just grab some homeless man off the street and let the inevitable hilarity ensue. (And yes, I do know they fed the man. Kudos to them, but it's hardly like they can't afford it and afterwards he was no doubt homeless again. A meal for public humiliation; was it worth it I wonder?)

The sad thing is that so many of the people putting out this garbage seem to actually be intelligent human beings. Imus appears to be charitable and thoughtful at times, and has had many many powerful and influential guest on his show for reasonable discussions of important issues. This makes their ultimate descent into the gutter even more depressing. These guys KNOW what they are putting out has no societal value other than to shock, that all they are keying in on is the modern man's inability or unwillingness to engage larger issues and his tendency to wallow in his baser instincts. If even the smartest among us feel the need to "play the putrid card" in order to be heard and get attention, what does that say about our society? How little regard must they have for those that listen to them that they assume this is what they want? And how disturbing is the unavoidable conclusion that they are right, that this is what most people DO respond to?

We have mystery diseases we don't know how to cure, environmental catastrophes looming ever closer, international terrorism and war killing people every day, a volatile global economy, worldwide spiritual decay and a host of other issues of vital importance to discuss. And with all the mighty technology at our disposal, with all the communications resources we possess in the 21st century, this is what we fixate on. This is what we are given and God help us, this is what we listen to. They say that people get the government they deserve and that might be true. It's also apparently true that we get the mass media we deserve.

If enough people like "Opie and Anthony" and want them to stay, I sincerely hope they do. But in my heart of hearts, I wish the kingdom of free speech I'm defending was a lot more like Arthur and a lot less like Caligula.

A Piece of the Puzzle

The older you get, the more focused you become on the end part of your life rather than the beginning. Obviously that's because at that point more and more of your life is behind you rather than in front.

You want to know what to expect.

Death is a bitter pill to swallow. It's the one immutable fact we have in this existence, other than life itself. We know it's coming, we see it happen to loved ones and friends and acquaintances and strangers and yet for all our experiences with it we have no idea what it really is or what it really means. No one knows for sure if there's an afterlife, if our consciousness survives or if we just "wink out" light a burnt out lightbulb, our life force fading into total nothingness.

We struggle with these things because we not only wonder about our own fate, but about the fate of our loved ones. We wonder if they are OK, where they are, if they can see and hear us and interact. More generally, we wonder about what our own lives are supposed to be without them, and if somehow they share our sense of "apartness" and long for a reunion with us as we do with them.

It was with all this in mind that I attended my first session with a professional medium last month. I had heard of this person through acquaintances, but had hesitated going. I wasn't sure if I was ready to experience all the emotion that I knew flow out of this meeting. I was not sure what I would hear, or how I would react. Like all new experiences, it was fraught with emotional danger and fear. I had filed it under the "maybe" column and went on with my life.

But several odd anniversary convergences made me rethink this posture. On March 19 my mother had been gone for two years. On March 22, she would have turned 80 years old. On April 8th, my father had been gone for fifteen years and on March 22nd my mother's house had had an accepted offer on it. It just seemed as if the universe was telling me this was a good time.

I went in with no real expectations. I had hoped to somehow converse with or contact my mother, whose loss, if you are familiar with this blog, was absolutely devastating to me. But that was more of a hope than a real expectation. I know a good many people who have "crossed over", as they say, and if this woman truly had a gift, any number of them could have come through.

The session itself was a little over a half hour. The medium took me into a small upstairs bedroom of the host's house and gave me a quick outline of what she did. After that she began the reading. I guess the biggest surprise for me was the extent to which my recently deceased brother came through. In a thirty minute plus session, he (and at least someone I strongly perceived to be him) came through and communicated for at least 20 minutes. He related a lot of small details that seemed to indicate that this truly was "him" that was speaking to the medium. He also had at least one message to a family member that rang very true emotionally, and he had some observations about himself that also had the strong ring of truth to them. Not everything was crystal clear of course. There were a couple of things he mentioned that I still cannot connect to the real world; luckily I captured the session on audiotape so at least I can try to refresh my memory through that.

Later in the session, a man appeared to the medium that seemed to be someone I had worked with until they recently committed suicide. I was not close with this person, but knew him in a casual way and generally liked him. Again, some of the details provided seemed very "spot on" and I came away feeling that this could easily "be" this person.

Still later, a woman who I hope (and honestly feel) had to be my mother came through with some very positive messages for me. I wish she would have held the stage for longer, but apparently there were 19 people waiting for me and in order to "speak" she had to push her way to the front of the crowd. I appreciated that effort, and that determination, that awareness on her part of my need to hear from her, really helped to confirm her identity to me.

A man that I took to be my father also came forward with a message that I understood and that made sense knowing the history of our relationship. Another woman that I cannot yet identify also came through. As the session was drawing to a close, the medium asked me if I had any questions and, as I was becoming emotional at this point, I blurted out "Do you see any animals?" I had heard she could also communicate with deceased animals and I had lost several beloved pets over the years.

She did indeed talk about animals related to me, but it seemed as if she was keying on one that was still alive! She provided physical and personality details of my cat that were very accurate and, to be honest, humorous. Actually it was well timed as I was quite emotional from the previous contacts; I needed a bit of lightness right about then.

As the session ended, I was elated to feel that there was some kind of validation for my hope of being able to contact my family. I had gone into the session believing in the possibility (having seen many such session on television and read about them) of contacting the deceased, but being skeptical enough to realize that just because it was possible that SOME of these claims have validity they don't ALL necessarily have it. Providing even more verisimilitude for the day, as I exited the room and descended the stairs, I was greeted at the bottom by a cousin I had not seen or talked to in years, who had also recently lost a sibling. Our families had had a foolish falling out years before and there was little or no contact between us for a long time. But on that day we met and chatted and hugged and things seemed OK, at least to the extent of being able to smile and talk civilly. It was a start, at least; a thaw of sorts in the cold family war.

It had been a remarkable, thought provoking day.

As time has passed (about five weeks) since the session, I've reflected on what it meant to me and how I should process the experience. I told several friends and relatives about the experience. Most of them seemed to be happy that I felt good about it, but it was obvious that they were skeptical of the entire endeavor. I sensed some hesitation in many of their voices, bu thankfully, no judgment. It wouldn't have changed how I felt about things, but it's always nice to feel like people don't think you're insane or evil!

Regardless of the feelings of others though, I feel the experience was a positive one. Does any of it prove anything? I suppose not. Even if I come away from it convinced that it's possible to contact those that have passed (which I do), there are still many questions. Nothing is absolute or immutable. I still have many, many questions not only about what was revealed in the session but about the entire process and what it means. I've considered going back to ask some of these questions, and I still may, but one thing I have decided is that ultimately, such sessions are tools and not any kind of "final answer." My own personal truth has been that there ISN'T any experience or discipline that can provide such an answer; not religion, not science, not philsophy. The closest thing I can come to an "ultimate answer" is that living on earth entails NEVER knowing all the answers. The best that we can hope for are glimpses of the Eternal; some wonderful insight from a novel that seems to echo with our own experiences, a quiet moment of absolute perfection with our family or friends, or maybe some brief sign or connection to the next world. None of these things are in and of themselves "final answers" but pieces of the larger puzzle, the solution of which will not be visible in this life, but hopefully, the next one.