t is 1975 and fifteen-year-old Julie Ann Wilson is living the good life. Her future is bright. It has to be. She is a good girl, a smart girl, a fortunate girl. Nothing can stop her--except death.
So begins Julie's journey with death in the cemetery where she resides with The Discontents--those like her who cannot move on to their next place. She is persuaded to return to her life, learn her story, and hopes to be released. She awakens to her Forever Summer at the family's lake house. But the idealistic Forever Summer turns dark when a wealthy widower moves into the community. Is he the friendly. charismatic man he appears to be or someone more sinister? Julie is determined to find out, which leads to dark. unforeseen consequences.
Can Julie save herself and undo the past or is she doomed to remain in In-Between Land? The Nearly Departed explores the dark side of humanity and the resilience of the human spirit.
t is 1975 and fifteen-year-old Julie Ann Wilson is living the good life. Her future is bright. It has to be. She is a good girl, a smart girl, a fortunate girl. Nothing can stop her--except death.
So begins Julie's journey with death in the cemetery where she resides with The Discontents--those like her who cannot move on to their next place. She is persuaded to return to her life, learn her story, and hopes to be released. She awakens to her Forever Summer at the family's lake house. But the idealistic Forever Summer turns dark when a wealthy widower moves into the community. Is he the friendly. charismatic man he appears to be or someone more sinister? Julie is determined to find out, which leads to dark. unforeseen consequences.
Can Julie save herself and undo the past or is she doomed to remain in In-Between Land? The Nearly Departed explores the dark side of humanity and the resilience of the human spirit.
Iâve witnessed hundreds of sunrises and have never tired of their beauty. How amazing that the sun can mount the courage to shine each day, even when confronted with the darkest, most dismal dawn. Some mornings, I fear it may give upâdecide itâs bored, underappreciated, forgotten. But it rises, determined to be noticed and remembered because it understands its light will eventually go out on some faraway day.
What I donât understand is why the sun gets billions of years to shine. An old, worn-out starâway beyond its prime. And we (expendable mortals) getâŚmaybe a hundred, if weâre fortunate. If people have only so much time, why do they waste it? I watched them again today hoping to find an answer.
A man jogs by, checks his watch and runs faster. Another walks his dog and yanks at the leash, âCâmon, do your business.â A woman and a small boy scurry down the sidewalk, and suddenly, he stops, âMommy, look at the pretty sun. Itâs all gold and shimmery. Beyond that is heaven, right?â The mother considers this. âYes, yes, but we donât have time for that now. Sunrises donât pay our bills.â
On they go. Sheâs right. Sunrises donât pay bills, but man are they beautiful.
These peopleâso preoccupied with things to do and places to go that they fail to find beauty in their aliveness. The jogging man. Does he stop to appreciate his lungs that enable him to run? The man with the dog. Does he appreciate the dog heâs yanking? And the mother. I find her the most troubling of all. Missing the chance to observe that beautiful sunrise with her son.
If they could hear me, Iâd scream, WAKE THE FUCK UP! Seems youâll have forever, right? You donât. Why even the sun knows that. How about taking an extra minute and appreciating things that really matter? Gaze at the stars. Hug your child a little longer. Call your grandmother. Wave to the paperboy. Do something besides watching the clock, or counting how much youâve achieved or will achieve. A minute or two isnât much in the grand scheme of things. Donât kill the precious time you have.
Youâre muttering, okay, okay, Iâll do it tomorrow. Tomorrow is a tedious word. Tomorrow this, tomorrow thatâa word for taking the easy way out, an excuse not to live in the present. Put off what you should have done today. Then tomorrow becomes yesterday and still undone. Do you hear the ticking? Listen. Tick, tick, tickâthe ticks coming closer together. Youâre ten years old, then twenty, then thirty, and so on (if youâre lucky). The next thing youâre running, not walking. And in the blink of an eye, the sun is gone, and so are you.
I know. Iâm dead.
Julie Ann Wilson
1960 â 1975
Our Bravest Angel
Below the inscription is a small embedded ceramic picture. A girl with a slightly brooding smile rests her head in the palm of her hand and stares intently into the camera, long brown hair parted neatly down the middle, secured with blue barrettes that perfectly match her blue huckapoo blouse.
The girl of 1975.
I donât like looking at my gravestone. It makes me mad, sad, and everything in between. There was a future, MY future: high school, dates, proms, college, marriage, children. Things I deserved! And besides, death is meant for othersâthe old, decrepit, mean ones. I wasnât any of them.
I was the good girlâattending Sunday school and church, doing my homework and chores without fail, minding my parents, looking after my little sister.
I was the fortunate girlâhappily ensconced in the pristine suburbs, living in a split-level brick and vinyl-sided house, carefully pruned rose bushes on either side of the polished front door, and in the backyard, the green metal swing set shining against a sapphire sky. Sparkling white winters sledding down Poplar Hill. Spring vacations spent at Uncle Todâs farm, feeding chickens and milking cows. And those never-ending summers at our lake house: swimming, fishing, roasting smores over the campfire at night.
I was the smart girlâthe one going places. âTheyâ all said so, but I donât think âtheyâ meant this place.
That was me. Was me? I am not past tense! I IS. I is because I feelâa swirl of perceptions, emotions, thoughts, and sentiments.
Will I be âisâ tomorrow? (My fourth-grade teacher would have a stroke hearing me annihilating verb tenses.) Donât want to burst her bubble, but tenses donât mean much when youâre dead.
If you can accept my âIsnessâ, then help me. Help me understand where I am. It canât be heaven. If it were, Iâd be among serenading angels drifting between puffy white clouds, looking down over fields of tulips and daffodils. Thereâs nothing here that comes close to resembling an angel and dandelions are the only flowers Iâve seen.
Canât be hell. No fire and brimstone or a red-faced ghoul carrying a pitchfork. Purgatory? Perhaps. Being raised Methodist, though, purgatory was off the table. But who knows? Maybe John Wesley had missed that. And why would I be in purgatory? Like I said, I was a good girl.
Could be itâs a place like purgatory. A prepping place. Preparing you before you go to the Big Place. How do I prepare? Do I atone? Apologize? If so, for what? Maybe itâs anger that keeps me here. Dying at fifteen, wouldnât you be pissed? Then again, age fifteen is an unsettling, prickly time. Prickly in life and now prickly in death? Iâm more than prickly though; itâs more like a persistent itch deep inside, and I canât reach it.
I WANT OUT OF THIS IN-BETWEENESS!
Iâll call, yet again, for someone who might give a hoot about me. âYoohoo. Anybody here? Anyone at all? Anything that can provide a clue?â
âHoo.â
I jumped out of my skin. âWho, what?â
âNot who, hoo.â
Before me stood a large white owl, a talking white owl. âWas that you?â I asked.
âIt was.â
âI didnât know owls could talk.â
âHow many owls have you known?â
âWell, none. And why would you, an owl, come to me and not a person?â
âPeople are ratherâŚfatuous. Most times they canât see beyond their own three-dimensional world. I must prepare you for the things you are about to see and hear. If you can accept me, then youâll be more open to the unfathomable. And beyond that, what are owls known for?
âWisdom?â
âCorrectomundo. And how many wise people have you known?â
I counted on my fingers. One, two, maybe three? And they were? Iâll remember later.
The owl tapped its talons. âListen closely. I donât have long. First, understand where you are and who you are. You are a Discontent, here at Perennial Gardens Cemetery and part of a larger group of souls caught in the Shadow Lands.â
âShadow Lands? Discontents?â
âBe patient. Donât interrupt. As I said, I donât have long. The Shadow Lands is a place where souls cannot move on.â
âLike purgatory?â I asked.
The owl gave me a piercing glare. âWhat did I say about interrupting?â
âSorry.â
It rolled its hulking eyes. âPurgatory is out of my realm, so I cannot answer that, although my understanding is purgatory is for the purification of souls. The Shadow Lands is different. Itâs filled with Discontents, or what I refer to as the woulda, shoulda, coulda people, as in: âI would have done thisâŚâ or âI should have done thatâŚâ or âI could have done thisâŚâ or âI wish I hadnât done thisâŚââ
I wondered which one I was. âOkay, get it. Then why am I here? Why am I a Discontent?â
âThat you must figure out for yourself, but you have help. Other Discontents reside within this cemetery. Talk to them. Listen to them. Discover why they are here, and maybe you can determine why you are here and thus, be released.â
âIâve never seen or heard a soul here.â
The owl swiveled its neck around. âTheyâre not hard to find, if you want to. Theyâre waiting, living (or dying), to tell their stories. They want release, like you. Unless youâre afraid of what you might learn.â
I turned my neck a complete 270 degrees, imitating that insufferable owl. There, take that. âWhat story could they tell that would have any significance for me? And I am not afraid.â
That screechy voice lit into me. âGet over yourself and listen. All beings, dead or alive, have a voice. Youâll meet souls and think theyâre far removed. They are not. A universal thread connects us all. A word of caution, though. One among you is not connected: The Soul Robber.â
âThe what?â I asked.
âA being born without a soul or a being who sold its soul to the devil. Now it searches for one; anyoneâs free-floating innocent soul will do. It will steal yours if you let it.â
âHow will I recognize it? How do I stop it?â
âKeep watch for a thing with empty eyes, so empty they are colorless. It follows a script like a well-trained actor, but itâs all show. There is a complete lack of sincerity. It has been known to talk about friends, relatives, creative pursuits, though never in detail. They are a frontâan attempt to cover up its lack of compassion, empathy, its hollowness.
âNow Iâm afraid. No. Iâm not afraid. Iâm petrified.â
âDonât be. Just be vigilant.â
The owl spread its wings, flew away, and disappeared. I looked around. All appeared normal. Nothing I needed to worry about. Stop worrying, and what will happen? That which you told yourself not to worry about will happen. That principle proved true again.
A rumbling noise came from belowâthat hideous place down the hill where the moist ground breeds slugs and shrews, and oak trees older than Methuselah block the light. If a soulless entity was out and about, thatâs where it would be, but I didnât hear a soulless creature. I heard human voices: âI want love! I want revenge! I want another chance! I want forgiveness!â They blended into one big I WANT! These must be the Discontents. Their voices grew louder, intensifying, until they sounded like a horde of locusts.
âSTOP! I canât listen to all of you!â
Bang! Someone, or something, pounded its fist against the ground. The voices ceased, except one. A womanâs voiceâsoft, warbly, but demanding. âI will go first. Come down here, little girl. We wonât hurt you. We only want to talk.â
Okay, maybe I didnât want out. After all, were the Shadow Lands all that bad? Then I remembered the endless days, unrelenting nights, time that never seemed to move forward. And worst of all, the complete isolation. I took a step and slid, landing headfirst in a pile of smelly, sloppy, indefinable gunk. Afraid and petrified had vanished; irritated, thatâs what I was. The frail voice spoke again. âIâm waiting.â
âHold your horses, you impatient haunt. I canât even see! Iâll be there when Iâm good and ready, when I get this shit out of my eyes.â I wiped them and took another step, this time more cautiously. She stood before meâthe woman with the warbly voiceâa gauzy silhouette wearing a tattered white nightgown with small crimson flowers embroidered on the breast, and a maroon hem. She leaned against a colossal monument with a marble figure sprawled atop, a man cradling his head in his hands.
Julie died when she was just fifteen years old. Conversing with The Discontentsâthose who havenât moved on to the afterlifeâher quick wit allows her to quickly determine what keeps each of them from departing the cemetery. In order to discover what holds her in place, Julie will experience the final chapter of her life again. She returns to that last summer at the lake house with her family, testing boundaries and experimenting with boys and forbidden vices, all the while under the watch of a man who outwardly appears trustworthy and charismatic. But Julieâs instincts scream at her to keep her distance. The more she discovers, she realizes she must stop him at any cost.
The Nearly Departed is divided into sections, separating life from death. In the first quarter of the book, Julie listens as an assortment of people describe their lives and their regrets. This entire section felt very choppy, like being whipped from side to side on an old wooden rollercoaster. Told almost entirely through dialogue, there is no setting or emotion, just a barrage of people complaining about their deaths. When the story moves to Julieâs second chance at life, unfortunately, the narrative remains choppy. Short, incomplete, dry sentences comprise the majority of the story, almost like quickly scrawled lecture notes. Many typos and errors disrupt reading, and dialogue often jumps from person to person without transitions or inflections. This style worked in the final section of the book, which is told in scenes sort of like a screenplay, but I felt it made the book difficult to connect with for the first two sections.
The subject matter of Julieâs life is highly triggering, and no content warnings are provided in the book. It is important for potential readers to know that this book describes a child molester who is grooming teenage girls. Jeanne K. Johnsonâs message is an important one: teach your children to recognize the warning signs of pedophiles and to alert a parent or other trusted adult if you suspect or experience something inappropriate. Unfortunately, the delivery of this message, which could have been profound and emotional, is marred by the writing style. I am sad to say that I cannot recommend this book to anyone.