Holding On (A short story)

A man learns to believe in himself early in life but later finds that belief becomes ultimately all he has.

You have to hold on to who you are

Thats what I told myself now at the graveside, staring at the gaping hole in the earth and the mourners gathered around it.

I first heard someone say that back in college. I had not been there long and was smoking weed and ditching classes. Generally getting in with the wrong crowd and my studies were suffering. On one of the increasingly rare occasions I made a class my English lecturer, Mr Thompson asked me to stay back. I did with more than a little reluctance, waving at a couple of my friends and telling them I would catch them outside. We were alone then, last of the footsteps echoing down the hall. I remember a stray shaft of sunlight from a high window illuminating the hairs behind Mr Thompson's head as stared at me for a long minute before he spoke.

"You're falling behind Gary,"
"I'm fine Mr Thompson," I threw him the most reassuring smile I had in my arsenal.
He winced slightly, gave a world weary sigh. "I've seen it all before Gary, you come here, you want to fit in, I know what it can be like. A few smokes, a few beers." He threw his hands up exasperatedly. "I will be blunt, you will have to knuckle down or you will fail your exams, you are hardly here and when you are, well, you would be as well not to be."
"I'm sorry Mr Thompson, I have had some stuff going on..." I trailed off, racking my brains for something that would give me an excuse to escape.

Hurry up Gary! came a distant shout. I looked anxiously at the door, eager to leave.
"You can go Gary, just remember this," Mr Thompson pinched the bridge of his nose as though pained. "You have to hold on to who you are. Do not throw your future away by pretending to be someone else for those idiots" With that he pointedly jerked his head at the door toward the outside where my friends were waiting.

Relieved I moved off toward the door. I glanced back and saw Mr Thompson's eyes tracking me as I left. The way he had said that sentence resonated with me. I knew I had been acting out. I knew I had been showing off to the other guys, seeking approval. But You have to hold on to who you are. It made me think, as I walked to the fire door near the stairs where I could see my friends waiting, one already proffering a joint. I realised I had been doing the exact opposite. It was a small step but I didn't get stoned that afternoon. Instead I got my nose in some books and tried to make up for lost time.

Of course I was never an angel but there was a marked difference in my life from that moment as I clung to a new found belief in myself and who I was. When I graduated those words kept ringing in my head as fresh then as they were when Mr Thompsn had uttered them two years before.

There were other times too, work situations where I found myself being pressured to be someone else by psychotic bosses or psychotic organisations. hold on to who you are was my mantra and I think it served me well. I lived a good life, got married, three children.

Then I died.

It's not the end. It can be. But its not. I died in a screaming mass of mangled metal as a truck ploughed into my car at an intersection. I don't remember all of it. The shock, noise then silence. I watched from the sidelines as the emergency services came and tried to free my body from the car. I screamed myself hoarse, no one heard. I tried to pull people aside, beg them to call my wife. But I was insubstantial, wraithlike, no one could see me.

I lost a few days. I was numb, hoping that this was some kind of nightmare that I would wake from. There was no waking. There was no sleeping. My wraith like body which had been so visible at least to me began to fade. I found my thoughts too drifting, becoming less cohesive and I was glad. Let this be it then. Let me move beyond whatever this was. Time blurred. I was lying outside my old house in the grass, family grieving within. I dont remember how I came to be there. What little there was left of me was spreading thin among the wet green blades, becoming nothing.

A voice buzzed nearby. Blunt and angry. There aint nothin beyond this
I struggled to rise, to look at the interruptor. An insubstantial, hawk faced old man knelt beside me. "There aint nothing else beyond this," If you let go, you're gone." Then he got up, spat and strode off. I forced what I called a body to rise and I remembered those words again. You have to hold on to who you are

It was truer now than it had ever been. So here I am. Holding on. Watching my beautiful wife weep for her cruelly taken husband and my children stare in pallid silence at the turned earth. Too young to fully grasp where daddy had gone. What could I do? What was this? I had to find out. There had to be a reason. Until I did I had to hold on, hold on to who I once was