A Second Chance Read online

ps was having a very bad day. It began the minute he woke up. It had all started with the fact that he had overslept and no one had awakened him. When he went to take as shower, there was no hot water left. His wife and three teenage children had already taken theirs.

  During breakfast, he burned his toast and spilled his coffee. This, along with his three children was more than he could take. He lost his temper and started yelling at them. The three teenagers suddenly became quiet. They looked scared and uncomfortable.

  John's wife, Robin was furious. She had put up with John's bad temper for far too long. She told the children to get ready for school. After they had left the room Robin turned to her husband and said; "I've had enough of your bullying and abusive behavior, and I know the kids have had enough as well. I will not have my children be afraid in their own home. I want you out of this house."

  John started to speak, but Robin interrupted him and said, "I don't care where you go, but I want you out of this house by the time I get home this evening."

  The kids knew that something was wrong, when they heard the yelling, and then heard the door slam. They knew that the situation must be very bad, for their mother to become extremely angry like that. She was always the calm, understanding parent who never raised her voice in anger.

  The three of them left the house as quickly as they could and headed for the bus stop.

  As Robin drove, she thought about her marriage and tried to figure out when it went it had begun to go sour. She had met John in college, twenty-three years earlier. John was a senior and she was a sophomore.

  They had met in a bar off campus. John bought her a drink and they talked for over an hour. Robin found John attractive and she liked him because he was not egotistical like many guys she had met over the years. John wanted to talk about her, not himself, and he was genuinely interested in what she had to say.

  Over the course of the following year, John and Robin grew closer. John was planning on working on his MBA degree after he graduated in May. He was ambitious and had formulated a plan to be a top executive in less than ten years.

  John received his MBA, the same year that Robin received her BA degree in marketing. They got married the following year. John was twenty-five and Robin was twenty-three.

  They bought a house in Chicago, near where Robin's parents lived. They both had very good jobs. Robin worked in Marketing for a major pharmaceutical company and John worked for a computer company specializing in programming and research.

  John had no family still living. His mother had died from complications of a ruptured appendix, when John was twelve, and his father had died when John was a sophomore in college.

  After they had been married for two years, Robin told John that she wanted a baby. John thought that they should wait a while longer, but he finally gave into her wishes.

  One year later, Robin gave birth to a son, which they named Thomas. Robin decided to stay home for a few years and then she would go back to work. However, God had other plans for her. A year later, she gave birth to a daughter; Katherine and two years later, she gave birth to another son; Brian.

  With three children at home, Robin decided to stay at home until they were all in school. As Tom, Katie and Brian got older, John spent more and more hours at work, trying to climb the corporate ladder. By the time Tom was ten years old, John had started his own company. John had developed an online security system for computers.

  Now, six years later, John was president of a company that employed sixty people. He had made changes in his security system over the years and it was such a huge success, that both AOL and Microsoft wanted to buy him out. John turned down both offers.

  John was working twelve to sixteen hours per day, six days per week. He rarely saw his wife and kids. The family had not taken any vacations together, in seven or eight years. Instead, John paid for summer camps for his kids, sent Robin to day spas, and gave her money for shopping sprees.

  As the kids got older, John became more critical of them, and they began to resent him for it. In the past year, John had become even more irritable when he was with his family. The slightest thing would set him off.

  Robin finally realized that in his quest for success in the business world, John had sacrificed his family. Robin knew that the marriage was over, because John refused to change his priorities. As she drove downtown, Robin's eyes filled with tears.

  As John drove to work that morning, he felt numb all over. When Robin told him that she wanted him out of the house, it had hit him like a ton of bricks.

  "How could she want him out of their lives?" he asked himself. "He gave her and the kids everything they could ever want; the best schools, camps, spas and the latest techno gadgets and as much money as they needed. What more could they want?"

  John's mind was on his family, his job, everything but the road that he was driving on.

  John had not seen the stoplight change to red and he did not see the police car stopped at the light in front of him, until he ran into the back of it. The crash brought John back to reality.

  John's car was still drivable and after receiving a ticket, he continued on his way to work.

  John arrived at the office over an hour late. His client had been waiting for thirty minutes and was very angry. As John was trying to calm him down, his secretary started complaining that the copier had broken down again.

  John felt a sudden pain in his chest. It felt like someone was standing on top of him. The pain became much worse and then it disappeared.

  John looked around and noticed that he was no longer in his office. He was standing outside a strange looking building. It was blue and yellow, and appeared almost transparent and the architecture was nothing like the buildings he knew.

  There were trees, grass, and flowers all around him. All of the colors seemed so vibrant, so intense.

  As John stood there in a daze, trying to figure out where he was, A person in a purple hooded robe came up to him. John asked the person where he was. The person remained silent, but directed John to enter the building.

  John told man that the last thing he remembered was a severe pain in his chest. Then, John suddenly stopped talking, and a feeling of dread came over him.

  "Am I dead? Is this Heaven?" he asked.

  The man spoke to John; "This is not Heaven, and no, you are dead, not exactly. You are in a state of limbo, between life and death. You are presently in the 'Garden of Reflections'. It is here that your fate will be decided, based on the following period of self-reflection. The man saw John has puzzled look and he tried to explain.

  "When a human's life on earth ceases to exist, as you know it, you are given the opportunity to evaluate your life, and find out what you have learned from it. You will be shown highlights of your life from birth to the present. After you have reviewed them, a final decision will be made as to your final destination."

  Robin was working at her desk, when she received the phone call. John had been taken to the hospital. He had suffered a major heart attack at his office. The doctors were planning a triple coronary bypass to try to save his life.

  Robin dropped the phone onto the desk. After the initial shock had worn off, she called the schools and told the office staff that she would be by to pick up the kids immediately. She did not explain the situation to the staff, because she had to be the one to tell the kids about their father.

  After she had picked up the kids they had many questions for her, but she did not answer any of them, until they were on the way to the hospital.

  "Your father is in the hospital. He had a heart attack an
d they are getting him ready for open heart surgery." That is all that she would tell them.

  Tom and Katie just sat there in silence, unable to say anything. Brian asked; "Is Dad going to die?" "I don't know." Robin answered, "I just don't know." Brian's eyes filled with tears.

  When they arrived at the hospital, a heart surgeon explained the procedure to Robin and told her that she needed to sign the consent forms. Robin and her children were then taken to John's room in the Coronary Intensive Care Unit. He was still unconscious. Robin kissed his forehead and then, he was taken to surgery.

  Robin and the kids were taken to a surgical waiting room and were told that the procedure would take several hours.

  John was staring at a large television screen that was as big as a wall. The images were three-dimensional. As he sat there in a comfortable recliner, he watched as his life began to unfold in front of him.

  He smiled, as he watched his mother holding him and singing to him when he was a baby, and as a small child. The first six years of memories filled John with love and warmth.

  Then, he saw a scene that upset him quite a bit. He was seven years old. He had asked his dad to play catch in the front yard with him. His dad told him that he was too tired to play with him. When John kept pestering his dad about it, his dad got angry and told him to go to his room.

  John's father was