Phone Call from Heaven

It's seldom a good sign when the phone rings in the middle of the night. I reached for it, my heart racing.

"Hey Bruce, it's Lilly."

Lilly? It took me a few seconds, but I remembered...

Lilly, who founded a wine company by strolling around San Francisco, inviting restaurant owners to share a glass of her first vintage.

Lilly, who went to Africa to build clean water wells... the very same night the idea struck her.

Lilly, a friend of a friend, with whom I had always felt an inexplicable connection.

That Lilly.

"Busy?"

I let out a small chuckle. "Lilly, it's 4 a.m. here."

"Yeah, I figured you'd have time to chat. You know I still follow your work."

Though half-asleep, I felt a warmth spreading across my cheeks. I hadn't seen Lilly in at least six years and had assumed she'd forgotten me.

"Can you put on some music?” Lilly asked.

"Now? During the call?"

"Yeah, I would, but I don't have any."

The thing about Lilly was that she made these wild requests, and people would simply oblige. Earlier that night, I had been listening to The John Butler Trio Live at Red Rocks, so I played that.

"Much better. Nice choice. Hey, Bruce, I need to tell you something. It's pretty important."

She paused for a long time before continuing.

"You're so close, Bruce." Another pause.

"I'm not following you, Lilly."

"You're a good guy and you're talented, and you have a great heart, and you work hard."

A "but" seemed imminent, I could feel it coming.

"Imagine, just imagine, what you could accomplish if you were always present. Not for an hour or two, but day after day, week after week. How long could you keep it going? A month? A year? Maybe two? More? Could you? What would it take?"

Now she spoke in rhythm with the music, her words coming in bursts.

This wasn't a completely foreign concept to me, although I rarely discussed it at 4 a.m. "You mean to be present, right?"

"Yeah, present. Completely present. 100% present. In the zone. It's possible, you know. You can do it. I'm not just flattering you. You could stay there for an incredibly, astonishingly long time. You've got a good, long run in you. I've never said this to anyone else, and I just had to tell you. I wish I could have told you..."

She fell silent. Was she crying?

"Lilly?"

"We both messed up. I should have told you sooner, but you should have figured it out long ago. You aim too low, you know? You get a burst of inspiration, it lasts maybe 45 minutes, and you thank the heavens above. That's trivial. Not even worth mentioning."

Another lengthy pause.

"Do you understand your potential? I know you don't, that's why I had to call."

She laughed.

"Hey, Bruce?"

"Yeah?"

"You won't forget what I said."

"Of course not, Lilly."

"That wasn't a question. You won't forget what I said because your phone recorded this entire call. Sorry that I don't have more time. Truly sorry. So long."

Confused, I stared at the phone in my hand for a long time, then eventually set it down and sank back into bed. A few minutes later, I sat up and pulled out my laptop.

I looked up Lilly on Facebook. Nothing. LinkedIn? Nothing. No Twitter either.

Then I found it, a short piece in the Kalamazoo news section on Mlive.com. It was two weeks old:

Lilly Raymond, 47, died in a boating accident on Lake Michigan.

A sense of calm came over me. My normal reactions were no longer in play. My brain wasn't spinning, my stomach wasn't clenching.

I took my time, but there was no doubt in my mind. I picked up the phone and searched for Voice Memos, an app I’d never used before. There was one recording there. I pressed Play.

"Hey Bruce, it's Lilly."