Path to Transcendence

After Julian lost his parents and sister several years ago, he hadn’t known what to do. As just a young child, he wasn’t emotionally prepared to deal with everything that came after. Their deaths hadn’t even been a possibility in his mind. Death was an obscure thing to young Julian.

They were killed in a car accident. Some stupid drunk driver coming home from the bar late at night was several times over the legal limit and hit them head-on, killing them instantly in a ball of flame.

He didn’t have any other relatives other than his mother’s father. Luckily, his grandfather took him in and raised him as his own. His gramps had lost his own wife a few years earlier but learning of his daughter's death had hit him harder than it had hit Julian. Julian had seen his grandfather often crying over old photo albums of his mother.

Julian had been angry for a long time, it took years before he was able to get past the worst of it. The rawness faded with time, but the pain and rage never went away. However, the loss and anger he and his grandfather shared brought them closer together. They would take week-long camping trips to the middle of the wilderness, hunting, fishing, and enjoying nature in its purity. The time they spent with each other was therapeutic for both of them and allowed each other to heal from their anguish. They both learned to continue living their lives and they did, for several years at least.

But now he was gone too. It wasn’t like it was unexpected. His gramps was almost 80 years old but it still hit Julian hard. In fact, it might have hit him harder than losing his parents and sister. Because this time, he understood the value of family and appreciated it more than before.

His gramps didn’t want to have a funeral or any type of service, most of his friends had passed away already and wanted his ashes spread on the mountain they had often camped on.

So that was exactly what Julian did. He was sitting on the edge of the cliff that he and his gramps used to watch the sunset over the horizon. He had his gramp's urn full of ashes lying in his lap, looking over the green forest that expanded all across. He spent hours there, sitting there and reminiscing about the memories that they had gathered over the years.

Julian didn’t have many close friends after his family’s death. He had friends from school, but most of them were just people he saw and hung out with. Most of them didn’t even know about his family’s death.

His gramps was his best friend, they had shared everything together. He taught Julian all he knew, from cooking to hunting to just being a decent human being, he taught him everything.

After a while, he finally saw the sun begin to fall over the horizon. The orange light from the sun cast a beautiful ray of light over the forest and sky. However, he noticed something off in the distance. Large flashes of blue and violet streaks were stretching across the sky. Beautiful arcs of light danced and sparkled.

He didn’t know what it was. It certainly wasn’t lightning, not when there wasn’t a cloud in sight. So what could it possibly be?

Even after several minutes went by, the light show continued without any signs of stopping. Julian didn’t know what it was, but he didn’t believe there would be a more magical send-off than this.

With a smile on his face and tears running down his cheeks, he opened up the urn and tossed his grandfather’s ashes high up from the mountaintop. He watched as the wind took the ashes and scattered them all over the forest standing below.

It was a stunning scene, arcs of magical light dashing across the sky with the sun setting just over the horizon. It was a fitting goodbye for the person who saved him from despair and gave him a little hope in his bleak life.

However, just when he was about to turn around and make his way down the mountainside. The ground started to tremble and an enormous gust of wind hit him from behind, blowing him right over the edge.

The world seemed to slow to a crawl as he tried to turn around and grab anything that might save him. But there was nothing. It was a straight drop over a couple hundred feet. So, with the extra time the world seemed to grace him with during these last moments, he took a moment to think about his life.

Although the world brought him plenty of misfortune, he lived a good life and even after everything, he wouldn’t change anything because it would mean he wouldn’t have gotten to spend all that time with his gramps.

So, with a final smile, he peacefully accepted his death and plummeted down to the trees below.