Bret

TIME TRAVEL IS REAL

“It was twenty years ago today when Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play” -Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

“The dog up and died, he up and died. After twenty years he still grieves” – Mr. Bojangles

Well it really WAS 20 years ago today, July 4th, 2002 I hit a hole in one after a lifetime of amateur golfing resigned that it was never going to happen. My late son Drew (DrewSwan.com) had stopped me in my backswing and switched my club to a 5 iron. As my father in law Wayne Judith Rolfs, my sons Jack Swan & Drew Swan and I watched the ball disappear into the hole from our perch in front of the water, Drew understood what had just happened first.

“Dad you just hit a hole in one!” He shoved me into awareness. I was still in denial and screamed “That did not just happen” over and over until I reached the pond, flipped onto my back and flopped into the water, cell phone, wallet and all, and celebrated with a back stroke. It was a top 5 life moment, up there with Drew and Jack being born, my marriage, getting hired for the first time, and winning the Little League title.

Yesterday I was able to time travel in a Delorean (I actually went to church with John Delorean at Dominic Russo‘s Oakland Christian Church- then BHCC). After living next to my new neighbors Bret and Becca for 6+ months, speaking with them daily, living on a “random” street in a house we hurried to secure in Birmingham – Brett informed me he “now remembers where we FIRST met – in 1988.” When he was a teenager I played basketball with him in my driveway and would often hire him as a baby sitter. “I used to change Drew’s Diapers! We lived RIGHT next door to you then as well – on Hemlock Street in Rochester, same side as we do now!!” said he.

If there was pond around I would have jumped in and said “that did not just happen”, cell phone, wallet, and all. He may as well have been Michael J. Fox telling me “I’m there – in the past, and I know Drew”. The message was clear. The odds are Absolute Zero that event was random.

There IS a bus driver to my life, it’s not me, and He is paying very close attention to the road. No detail of my life goes unnoticed. Therefore, there must another round of golf in my future with Drew – in a real place called Heaven, 20 or more years from today.

Just to be alive is a hole in one, and sometimes it just takes a shove from someone I love to wake me up into that awareness.