She woke in the hospital bleary, ominous words ringing in her ears, to find she was the sole survivor of the crash. The pain of loss, the pain of her damaged body drove them out. Rehabilitation was a long, slow process and learning to walk again took much of her energy. Sometimes while standing in a corridor waiting to catch her breath, the words would recur, echoing in her head, but she learned to ignore them.

In a grief support group, many months later, she tentatively shared them, and the facilitator talked about survivors’ guilt. She knew that the memory of Death’s words had surfaced before she learned the fate of her family, but then it had been a confusing time, drifting in and out of consciousness, heavily drugged, and perhaps her recollection was wrong, so she tried to push the words away. The usually silent young man who was at the group that day caught her eye then whispered “that would make a great premise for a horror novel!” and she was startled into laughing for what seemed like the first time since the accident. After, they bonded over a shared love of cappuccino and fantasy, and agreed that the stubbornly realist facilitator would have been the first to die in a Stephen King book.

And that begins a new story that you all have heard before, the kind that starts with “boy meets girl” and continues with degrees and jobs and marriage, friendship and children, love and loss. Once in a while the words echo in her head, but the indescribable voice that once haunted her grows more indistinct over the years until it is lost completely.

Many years later, she wakes feeling energized, and rises from her bed before her brain catches up to tell her that her once-damaged legs can no longer bear her weight. She turns to see her body still lying in bed, and standing next to it a familiar figure.

“We meet again.” The voice that still seems to consist of a thousand echoes reverberating as one. “Will you plead to return?”

“So you were real.”

“Obviously.”

“No, I’ve had a good life. It’s time. But I need to know… what did you mean last time? What did I do?”

Death’s forbidding figure turns to walk away, and she unthinkingly follows him. “What did you do? You just told me - you lived a good life. Your children had children, and I will reap them all in time. People recovered and lived their own good lives, because you became a therapist who used her experience to nurture empathy. I can hardly count the people who will never know they exist because of you, now and in the years to come. You grew old, and I am reaping a harvest of mature, beloved, fulfilled souls instead of a single sapling.”

She no longer has eyes, but if she did, they would be shining with wonder, with memories of the many tiny ways those words shaped her life. “Oh. Oh, I see… Thank you.”