And then he said my name. He said, “Mary.” My heart exploded. I wiped my eyes. It was him. Alive. Who was dead. It was my friend and my teacher and my saviour and my guide. I am not ashamed to say that I leapt at him and held him tight enough to drive the breath out of him again. I wept tears and snot and joy into his shirt and I kissed his face. I can tell you that he was no ghost. He was substantial. He was real and alive. Finally, he gently took my arms and held me away from him, both of us able to breath again. He spoke, and his voice was the final proof that I wasn’t hallucinating. It was his breakfast voice. The voice I had learned to love and respect. “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to our gang and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” And then he looked at me and those eyes were alight again with the light of eternity. He looked at me with such boundless and generous love. He looked at me and I knew that everything was well again. And he smiled for me as a single tear rolled down his face. That was my tear on his face. I reached and wiped it with my finger and placed it on my tongue. Then I did as he asked and went to tell the others that he was alive. There are so many stories about people seeing Jesus before he ‘left’. Some of them are even true. The moment with Tom was beautiful. The look on Tom’s face when he realised that it really was Jesus. The pure joy. I’ll always remember that. Just as I’ll always remember our last ride. Jesus came and asked if we could go up into the hills again. When he tapped me on the shoulder I was ready to drop him off and come back the next morning, but he asked me to park the bike. He’d brought a picnic. We sat in a clearing in the bush and laughed and talked and I tried ever so hard not to ask 125
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