I'm writing this post for @anutu who I have grown to admire for his compassion and gentle way of interacting with everyone on Steemit.

Although I have just recently written on the topic of Perception, I didn't go into the deeper rivers of personal experience. I just wasn't in the mood that day and thought it safe and useful to stay close to the surface where I could dream and enjoy the possibilities of a better world.

Of course, coming to this place that I wrote about in that post stems from a lifetime of events that would steadily change my perception. I like to gather up all that I've learned and pour it into my posts...sometimes going deep, sometimes floating on the surface without explaining what I am using as a flotation devise.

Why I started this #challenge?
We all experienced moments when our perception was wrong - when we had to question our perception, eventually this may lead to a change in our life. I would love to read about this little moment in your life. You don't need to write a long story. A short moment that opened your eyes would be great! There is so much we all can learn from this little moment in your life. And it will help to learn a little bit more about you.

As this is @anutu's first idea challenge (proud of you!), I thought I would support his challenge with a post.

To learn more: https://steemit.com/weneedtotalk/@anutu/what-s-dying-feel-like-weneedtotalk-perception-ae9c8bacbf81dest

I happened to have already thrown myself out there today, so why not add to the discomfort of baring a little more! haha! What's life about if you can't share meaningful moments and discuss deeper topics. I'm with you, @anutu! I get it!

So, here we go.

This was perhaps my first really major perception change moment.

I was 15 years old when I met my first love. We were at a Mardi Gras parade with friends and it was so packed with people that my best friend asked this boy, Scott, to hold my hand. The moment he wrapped his hand around mine, my world changed. I will never know what this meant, but this warmth enveloped my hand from his and an electrical sensation traveled up my arm. We both stopped in our tracks and looked at each other, stunned by the sensation, but said nothing about it.

I quickly put it out of my mind until I felt what seemed like a hand caress and then the feeling of my heart leaping out of my chest. I couldn't contain my smile and it freed itself just as I looked up finding his eyes looking into mine with a smile that again made my heart skip a beat.

From that day forward, we were smitten with each other and every moment of every day was filled with this sweet love that we had found in each other. He'd carry my books to each class, hold my hand, eat lunch with me and we'd play footsy with each other while our friends carried on about 'nothing'. We never talked much as we were both very shy, but there was this beautiful deep connection between us that didn't need many words. What were words? Just being with each other seemed like its own special language. The language of love....new love.

As the months passed, there came that moment of our first kiss under the moonlight with two horses as witnesses. It really couldn't have been a more perfect or more beautiful first kiss. And with the chill from the evening air, he wrapped himself around me in a hug that seemed to last for an eternity as he rocked us both back and forth in a soothing dance. Many times, I looked into his eyes and wanted to tell him how much I loved him, but I just couldn't in that moment. I didn't want to complicate it with words - I just wanted to absorb the experience fully. There would be another moment, another time to share those powerful words.

This moment would be cut short by his best friend driving up to say it was time to head home. Scott kissed me one last time as he walked backwards smiling, "Tomorrow! Tomorrow is a very special day!"

That day would be my birthday. We had been having playful dialogue about this day for a while - I'd always kid him that I didn't know what he was talking while he would try to get me to tell him that it was my birthday. It was a rather silly game we played with each other but once we started it, it was hard to stop so we just kept it going.

He grabbed my hand one last time and I laughed as I said, "I don't know what you could be talking about..." I then let go of his hand as he got into the car and as it drove off, I heard him saying, "I know what it is, I know what it is!" with his adorable laugh tapering off by the distance of the road between us.

The next morning, I woke to a raging storm outside. The rain and wind was so heavy that it was beating the windows. In all my years of birthdays, never had it rained. It was always a beautiful first day of spring, full of sunshine and first bursts of color. However, this birthday was a strange birthday. It felt out of context and dreary.

I had no sooner returned from spending time with my best friend, when Scott's best friend showed up at my door. There he was standing in the pouring rain with a straight and somber face, "I don't know how to tell you this, but...Scott..." His voice cracked and he broke out in a burst of crying before pulling himself together, "Scott died this morning at 6:30am." I couldn't make the connection in my mind and suddenly felt my whole body respond before my mind could catch up with his words - a surge of adrenalin flooded my brain as I became weak kneed. "No? No! Just last night...how is that possible? What?"

That Sunday was his wake. I had never been to a wake before and was still very much in shock, unable to believe that he was gone. Where did he go? How is that possible?! Where does that love go? Where does the essence of a person go? I felt him there with me - it was so confusing. So unbelievably confusing and too painful to take in. However, the entire school was there, his church congregation and family were there. It was like being hit by a wall of emotional reality. I walked through the whaling and crying, the soft voices of "I'm so sorry", the tears and sad faces feeling more and more consumed by grief. It was so real...surreal.

His mother came and got me from dimly lit and very quiet pew in the chapel. "You have to come see Scott now." I didn't want to see him that way but out of feeling for her pain I went with her but halfway through our walk to the room that he was in, I pulled away, "I can't do this...I can't!" She literally had to drag me to the casket reassuring me that this was part of saying goodbye. As we got closer, it was like the parting of the sea of people and I caught a glimpse of his casket front and center before us (what an image to take into my mind).

I pleaded with her some more. "I really can't do this!" Crying, she said, "He loved you so much, you have to look at him and say your goodbyes. You can do it." I held my eyes closed as tightly as I possibly could. "Open your eyes and look at him, it will be okay." She took my hand and laid it on his chest and the sensation was beyond what my heart could take. I opened my eyes and felt paralyzed by the reality that this pasty and swollen version of him was not him...but him? I couldn't move my hand - it was frozen in the memory of our last embrace and I couldn't bring myself to leave him. And so I stayed...much too long.

Between the day he died and the funeral the next day, there was so much swimming around in my head about life....and death. I had never confronted such deep and penetrating questions before. I still had that feeling that he was with me and wondered if it was similar to a phantom limb that people experience when a part of them is amputated. Was that why I felt him there? Was it the residual feeling of losing someone so quickly or was he truly there...somewhere?

At the funeral, as we laid him to rest (so hard), his father approached me as I was walking away. In his hand he held a single red rose which he handed to me. His eyes were so red and tired, his face full of restless dislocated emotion. "I have to give you this. Scott...I was with Scott when he died." He began to cry. "I have to tell you this. Scott had a serious form of asthma and that night it was very bad. He had asked me the previous week what a single red rose meant and I told him that it meant, I love you. He was so excited. On that night, he made me promise to put a single red rose in your mailbox so that you would know that he loved you."

I think that was the most beautiful rose I had ever seen and his father's words meant the world to me. A most profound moment for both of us, I'm sure.

After going home, with everything that transpired in those couple of days and his father's account of Scott's last words, I had this overwhelming feeling to go to his grave site by myself. I had to tell him how I felt. It was a 3 mile walk.

Arriving at his grave site, I stood under the tent that protected his new resting place trying to absorb the realness of it all. There were so many flowers...the scent of fresh turned earth mixed with the smell of carnations and roses permeated the air.

I closed my eyes to wipe away the heaviness that this scene engulfed me in and tried to place my heart and mind to the Scott that was living inside my memories - the one that was alive. When I got to that place where I felt him with me, I opened my eyes and said it out loud, "I love you, too! I love you so much!" and with that, a single red rose dropped from one of the stands. There was no wind.

In that moment, there was no question in my mind or heart that Scott was there. I had to laugh through my tears, "That...that was pretty special." I said to him. How I needed that so much. Just to know he was still there!

So many experiences followed this profound testament of love and life. I would have sudden moments of his 'smell' surrounding me, I had dreams that were so real it was as if he was really there.

As sad and heartbreaking as this story is, it opened up a door for me that forever changed my life. Not only for the perceptual changes and experiences that took place, but also the profound inter-connectivity and patterns, THE MEANING and deeper purpose in life were revealed to me.

I would never look at life or death the same way again. My perception of life became a lifelong pursuit of understanding more of those deeper questions; Who we are and what exactly makes up this essence we call a soul...and most importantly, love.

This is when my writing became my closest and most trusted friend, my sacred space.

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I was 'brave', @anutu!

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Photos Used in this Post:

#1 Modified Source

#2 Source