Before

*This story contains mention of various forms of trauma, violence, and loss.*

Where we exist is a playful and play-filled place, and we like it that way. Well, I guess we like it. None of us really knew what it was to not like something. The world we knew was satisfying and joyful, and we knew nothing but contentment.

There are several hundred of us, and the place where we live is breathtaking - rivers, mountains, trees, beaches, all beneath a sky that is always sparkling. Everything we need is provided for; our only purpose is to play.

Each of us had our own favorite kind of play - an activity we enjoyed that we could become completely immersed in. It differed for everyone. I didn’t know all of my playmates’ names, but I did know Vee, Jay, and Ari, mostly because they gravitated to the same activities as me. There were others whose play consisted of art, music, sculpture, or the natural world. The four of us loved something different - the playground.

We all loved to flip on the parallel bars, to climb to the highest height, to tiptoe across the balance beam, to slide to the dirt down the T-pole. My favorite was the swings; it was where I could often be found, soaring through the air as high as I could reach, feeling as if I were about to fly off into the sparkly atmosphere above us.

That was where I was when they came to find me.

*****

They walked up together - a man and a woman, both with silvery gray hair and wide smiles. The swingset had room for twelve, so they could have taken spots a little distance away from me, but they each chose a swing directly beside me, and suddenly I felt nervous. I wasn’t used to things happening that were unexpected - not in my existence.

“Elle?”

I nodded. “That’s what everyone calls me.”

Their presence was causing something to shift. They seemed friendly and kind, and yet I didn’t feel the way I did when I was chatting with my playmates or my teachers. I felt different.

The man spoke next. “You can call me Pop, and her Gee, okay?”

I nodded again. “Sure. Who are you?”

Gee and Pop looked at each other, then at me. “We're your ancestors, Elle,” Gee said.

The words were baffling. Yet as she spoke them, something shifted inside my brain, as if I were remembering something I had never known until this moment.

*****

All I'd ever known was my life of play and playmates, of togetherness and lessons and learning. I’d been with Vee, Jay, Ari, and the others for the entirety of my existence. Together we’d met with our teachers and done everything we’d ever done. Our lessons were lovely - we were taught to learn each other’s love languages, to accept circumstances outside of our control (which was pretty much everything), to say good-bye.

Had someone said something to me, a long time ago, about what an ancestor was? If they had, I couldn’t recall the memory. Now there were these two people telling me they were mine, and I struggled to understand what it all meant.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

Gee was beautiful - long wavy hair hanging down her back, periwinkle eyes that sparkled just like the sky above us did. I liked how it felt when she looked at me.

“We’re here,” she said, “because you have a choice to make.”

*****

I have always been what I am now. We don’t count age in specific numbers where we are - that’s not the way it works.

Not that I understand how it all works. Not at all.

This place is where I’ve been since I came into being, and my appearance has never changed. One of my teachers says that our appearances are reflections of our innermost selves. That’s why Vee is skinny and small - she has the soul of a child - and Ari, with his portly stature and rosy cheeks, has “the wisdom of the aged,” the teacher said. I am one of the only ones in our group who has ever questioned a teacher about all of this.

“We’re just us,” I said. “Why does it matter? What is age?”

The teacher didn’t answer. “You’ll learn when you need to learn. For now, you’ll learn the things you need to know now.”

I accepted this answer. I did ask one additional question. “How old is my soul?”

The teacher smiled at me. “You, Elle, have the soul of a teenager. An inquisitive one, too. Now go play.”

I did go play. I didn’t wonder about it all again until Gee and Pop came and found me on the playground.

*****

What was happening was my moment of becoming, Gee and Pop explained. My playmates and I had been existing in a place created only for us - for our young souls to learn and grow until it was time for us to become something else. To join a world we’d never known.

We were still on the playground. Pop was lean and strong, and he kept lifting himself up onto the monkey bars while we talked. Gee stayed beside me on her swing, gliding to and fro.

“You’ll be going to a place called Earth, and you’ll be doing it as one of our descendants,” she said.

“Will you be there?” I asked. I was getting a weird feeling in my stomach.

Pop dropped to the ground and shook his head. “We haven’t been there for a long time,” he said. “We’re somewhere else now.” His eyes shifted toward the sparkling sky above us.

“But we got to come here to fetch you,” Gee explained.

Their great-great-great-granddaughter was about to give birth, they said. They’d been allowed to observe us all - Vee and Ari and Jay and all the others - and they wanted me to be the soul of the new baby.

“Why me?” I asked.

Pop looked at Gee and winked. She smiled. “Pop let me choose, and I see a little of myself in you.”

“The swinging,” Pop said. “The flying. That’s your joy, yes?”

I thought about it. If joy meant freedom and happiness, then yes, to swing was my joy.

“It’s mine, too,” Gee said.

*****

For the entirety of my time in the place where we lived and played, there had been lessons. Our teachers guided our studies. None of our lessons felt like a chore - they felt natural and playful and immersive.

Much of our education consisted of scenario work - we’d be given roles to act out, and then we’d talk through our character’s choices with the teacher’s guidance. Em and Bea, who were always putting on silly shows for the rest of us, particularly enjoyed this kind of learning, but we all liked it. For our most recent scenario, Em was assigned the job of reaching the top of the monkey bars without using her hands. She motioned to me, and I organized Vee, Jay, and Ari into a human pyramid; together we lifted her up with little effort.

“What did we learn?” the teacher prompted.

“There’s always a way,” Em responded automatically.

“And?”

“There’s always someone who can help us and it's okay to ask for help,” I added.

The teacher nodded. The lessons were so simple. Focus on what you can control. Love others unconditionally. The biggest theme we explored was acceptance - that one, our teachers brought up over and over again, as if it were really critical that we learn how to accept things we didn’t like.

The thing was, we never didn’t understand the lessons. They weren’t challenging or controversial. Our instruction was always play-based and lighthearted. Occasionally discussion occurred, but everyone in our group understood that the lessons we were being taught repeatedly were simply universal truths.

We didn’t know why they were being presented to us so thoroughly, so methodically. After all, we existed in paradise. What were we being prepared for? What in our universe could possibly cause us to unlearn these simple lessons?

*****

“You said I had a choice to make,” I said.

Gee nodded. Pop had lain down on his stomach and was drawing on the sidewalk. I was too far away to see what he was sketching, but I wondered if he was like my friend Essie, whose favorite play involved using charcoal, mud, or paints to create intricate artwork. It was an activity that never inspired me much, but I liked watching Essie make her art. She looked happy and peaceful while she was making it. So did Pop.

“He’s not quite ready for us yet,” Gee said quietly.

“Can I ask a question?”

Gee nodded.

I gestured to the playground around us. “Why am I - here? Why are all of us here, before we go there? What’s the point?”

Gee smiled. “Your teachers warned me that you’d have questions.” She paused for a moment. “While you’re in the Before, you have a really important job to do.”

“To play,” I said.

“More than that,” she replied. “To find what it is that lights you up inside. To find your true joy.”

“Why is that an important thing to do?” I asked.

“Because when you get to Earth, things will get hard,” Gee answered gently. “You’ll lose your joy. But deep down in your bones - in your soul - you’ll know how to get it back.”

*****

From the moment Gee and Pop appeared on the playground, something had started happening to me, and I couldn’t understand it.

For the entirety of my existence, all I had ever known was contentment. We played and we learned and we lived. I slept most nights in a simple camping tent so that I could watch the sparkling sky as I drifted off to sleep, but others slept where they were most comfortable - on a blanket by running water, inside a cozy cabin, aboard a houseboat.

Now that Gee and Pop were here, talking to me about Earth and ancestors and descendants, I felt - something.

“It’s discomfort,” Pop said, seemingly out of nowhere. “You’re feeling uncomfortable, Elle. They start giving you a little bit of that now so that your transition to Earth isn’t such a shock.”

I nodded. Uncomfortable. It wasn’t a word I’d heard much before, but it made sense.

Pop stood up and surveyed his work. He had drawn what looked like a hopscotch court, each square filled with a mixture of words and intricate sketches. The squares he’d drawn lined up perfectly in front of the swingset. “Ready when you are,” he said.

Gee nodded. She reached over and took my hand. “Elle, there’s only one correct answer to this question,” she said, “and it has to do with the life you’ll live on Earth.”

“Every life’s got trials,” Pop added. “You won’t remember this, later - but you get to pick yours.” He held out his hand, and I stood to take it.

He was an incredibly talented artist. The details were exquisite, and all sketched out using chalk on pavement. But I saw it all, immediately - I saw what my choices were.

There was a picture of a family broken apart - divorce, Gee explained. A drawing of a person holding a needle and pill bottle, which Pop called addiction, a disorder that I would fight all my life if I chose it. One square showed a gorgeous drawing of a cluster of hearts, all broken clumsily in half.

“That’s the life of the unlucky in love,” Pop said. “Everything else will be beautiful if you pick that one, Elle, but you’ll never find true love proper.” He winked at Gee. “Can’t tell you what to pick, but I didn’t live that life.”

I pointed to one square, and Gee squeezed her eyes shut. It was a drawing of a person holding a small baby. “That one’s the loss of a child,” she said quietly.

My insides twisted into a knot just looking at that drawing.

There were many more - violent death, chronic lifelong illness, mental health struggles. Many different kinds of loss - parent, partner, friend, in addition to the loss of a child. War. Assault. Perhaps the one that unsettled me the most was a simple drawing of a smiling little one who looked just like Vee.

“That one will die as a child,” Pop explained gently. “They’ll live a perfect, nearly pain-free life. But it will be short.”

To see such words and images scrawed across the surface of a hopscotch game was disturbing. There was no way I could hop and frolic across these squares.

There was also no way I could feel the way these images were going to make me feel.

“I can’t do this,” I said quietly. I let go of Pop’s hand, and I returned to my swing. I began to pump furiously, and in a moment I was flying through the air the way I had a thousand times before. But instead of feeling light and carefree, I felt weighed down - as if letting go would cause me to come crashing to the ground.

*****

They let me swing; neither Gee nor Pop insisted that I speak. I don’t know how much time passed. Thoughts were racing through my mind.

Should I choose a pain that was only mine to bear? Should I choose brief moments of pain and suffering over ongoing agony? Emotional pain over physical pain?

“Elle, are you okay?” Gee called up to me.

I didn’t stop swinging. “What did you choose?”

She shook her head. “We’re not allowed to say.”

“Of course you’re not,” I spat out. My voice had never sounded like this before - so raw, so angry.

They began to whisper to each other, which only made me angrier.

“She’s upset,” I heard Gee say.

“Of course she is,” Pop replied. “The humanity is flowing into her. She’s almost ready to handle it.”

The next time I hit the highest point of my forward swing, I leapt forward. I heard them both gasp. Pop sounded worried; Gee, a little excited. I landed on my two feet, standing strong and steady.

I felt all right again. Not the same innocent contentment I’d had before all of this - I’d never have that again - but I felt as if my fear and the anxiety I felt over possibly making the wrong choice had been shaken from my body and absorbed by the ground beneath my feet.

“I won’t choose,” I said, without looking over my shoulder at them. “It’s against everything I’ve ever been taught. We’re not supposed to choose our struggles. We’re supposed to accept things, and face them as they come. We’re supposed to trust that we’ll be able to handle any challenge.” Now I turned to look at them - my supposed-to-be ancestors - and I tried to make my face look apologetic. “I’m sorry. Maybe I’m just not ready yet.”

Suddenly the ground began to shake, and the air around us began to whip into a frenzy. I looked at Gee and Pop, expecting to see disappointment and fear.

They were grinning.

“Correct,” Pop said. He sounded proud.

“You’re ready, Elle,” Gee said, looking around in delight.

At any moment, I was going to be lifted up into the air. I grabbed Gee’s hand. “Will you be with me?”

Gee nodded, hugging me to her chest as the world continued to spin. “No matter what trials you face,” she whispered, “we’ll be there. Somehow and someway.”

Pop smiled at me from over her shoulder. “She’s going to be just like you, Gee. I can feel it.”

I still had questions, and I could tell I only had moments left before whatever came next. “What if I forget?” I asked, looking right at Gee. “What if I forget how to be happy?”

She grinned. “We’re your ancestors, Elle,” she said. “We’ll send you reminders.”

*****

There are people who claim to have memories of past lives, but I don’t claim that.

I do remember one strange thing, though. When I was fifteen years old and feeling lost, I found an old journal in my grandmother’s attic. Inside it was tucked a photo of a beautiful woman with long wavy brown hair and a wide smile.

“That’s your great-great-great-grandmother,” my mother told me. “She travelled with the circus as a trapeze artist.”

I squinted at the photo. “I remember her,” I said quietly.

Which was impossible. But true.