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Moral Moments

Belief

by Joel Marks

“JOOOOOOOOELLLLLLLLLL?!” The shrill call of my name made me jerk the phone from my ear. In that instant I thought, “Mom.” I was flabbergasted: My mother had been dead for five years.

As the person on the wire continued to speak I had time to question myself. Could the death of my mother, even the sense that so many years had passed by, be only something I had dreamt the night before? Was it just that I had had no occasion to doubt it since waking up this morning, until this telephone call jarred me back to my senses and the realization that my mother was still alive?

I know there was a time in my life when I believed I could fly, for I remembered having done so.

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