Evan's Earthly Adventure A devastated father takes an extraordinary journey and finds answers to the meaning of death and what may come after Fifteen minutes later, he was dead. He had no way of knowing that the small pick-up truck being driven toward him that sunny afternoon would strike him down. The driver of that truck was charged with vehicular homicide and driving under the influence. Though Evan's earthly suffering came to an end that day, his parents, Mark and Nancy Holofcener, and their lone remaining son, 11-year-old son Ryan, continue to deal minute-by-minute with the pain his loss brought. During this most painful struggle, the question that kept rising was -- why? There is a saying that time heals all wounds. But how much time? For the Holofceners, each has pursued his or her own route of not necessarily healing, but at least coping. For Mark, that involved writing a book. He started only days after the accident, was compelled to do so, he said, and he has now finished it. "Evan's Earthly Adventure" was released this week. Approaching the one-year anniversary of Evan's death, Mark spoke recently about the "amazing" things that have happened in the 11 months since his son's death. For those who read his book, the experience is truly extraordinary. "The second I lost my son, something happened to me," he said. "My consciousnes changed. I talk about it in my book as a shift, a breaking from the old world to a new world. Something happened to enable me to see things as I never could before. It's a clarity I still have today. "I started looking very deeply into the meaning of all this," said Holofcener. "A 13-year-old incredible kid goes away so quickly -- what does it mean? Is it part of an overall design? I was really plagued by the question and was as determined as I have been for 30 years to find answers." The father recalled the days following the accident and the people who, in their efforts to console, kept saying that Evan was in a better place. "I kept wondering how do you know?" said Holofcener. "I started looking at the meaning of faith in general. People said, just have faith and believe. I said you can believe anything you want but just because you believe it, it's true? How could that possibly be? There has to be some universal truth." The heart of the book Holofcener set out to write was always Evan, whose short but inspired life had ignited a spark, his father said, in his family, his friends, and in many others who knew him. The book was initially geared toward parents, so many of whom had come to the Holofcener home to offer condolences. Many ended up weeping, not just in sympathy with the Holofceners, said Mark, but for themselves. They thought of all they had not said to and done for their own children. What if it had been them whose parent-to-child link was suddenly broken? "The book started taking a very circuitous path," said Mark. "I felt like I really had very little to do with the book. It almost presented itself to me, some of it in dreams." As he debated a name for the book, this, too, came in a dream. "In my dream, Evan and I were arguing, and he said this is the title for your book -- Evan's Earthly Adventure. I said okay." At Christmas, Mark and Nancy invited some of Evan's friends to their home. "They were so distraught," Mark recalled. "We realized that teens really have no one to talk to. Many parents were just giving them a B-S answer to the important questions they were asking about life and death, telling them to just get over it. Often parents themselves didn't have any answers. They had never delved into why are we here." During that holiday visit, Mark asked the teens what worried them most. The answer they wanted to know was -- is there a heaven? "I started looking at why they asked that," he said. "The next day I started writing." The book's focus changed, he said, now geared toward the children, who remain open to new ideas, to different possibilities. As children, Mark commented, we're told certain myths by our parents. There's the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus. And in its time, in each case, we find out that none of it is true. "Virtually all parents say 'don't worry about this death thing -- if you live a good life, you'll go to heaven,' " Mark said. "These kids are bright, sensitive, and inquisitive. They started connecting the dots and asked, 'Will this heaven thing turn out to be a myth? Will we find out too late?' " The Holofceners' journey -- the one that opened doors previously unknown -- began after the holidays. With Christmas passed, Nancy remained distraught. Even though Evan had died, as a mother, her husband said, she still wanted to know if he was all right. "She went to a medium," said Mark, to Rev. Simeon Stefanidakis at the First Spiritual Temple in Brookline. "She completely connected with Evan through the medium. All the medium knew was her first name, yet he described Evan, the accident, his personality. Evan told her he was okay. He kept saying, 'I'm okay. I'm whole now. It's better here.' "We have the tape," Mark continued. "It was a very, very deep connection. I had the same experience when I went to my own appointment, and again the medium didn't know my connection to Nancy. He knew nothing, yet said, 'I see this young boy who died. He's having a better time there, better than here.' I was so overwhelmed, I remembered almost nothing from it until I listened to the tape later." The Holofceners' quest for answers took them to the Weiss Institute in Miami. Dr. Weiss is the author of "Many Lives, Many Masters," and is perhaps the leading past-life regressionist in the United States. Weiss uses hypnosis as a means of taking his clients to a point in their lives before they can remember in order to search out past traumas. "Nancy and I each visited the Weiss Institute in Miami in early 2002, and we were both hypnotized and past life-regressed by an associate of Dr. Weiss, Dr. Lata Sonpal," said Mark. "Our experiences were extraordinary but different. "Nancy went back into past lives which helped her to understand why this life was progressing the way it has," he continued. "I went into the spirit world and spent an hour being with Evan." The session was taped. "My feeling upon entering the spirit world is beyond my ability to truly describe," said Holofcener. "Everything was gone, all worries, fears and doubts. It was as if I was in the midst of the entire universe. I noted that it felt soft and full of love and I was released from worries and that all fears were gone. Incredible tranquility. I said, 'I'm being pulled toward the light.' Then all of a sudden I was feeling lost until I heard Evan calling me. 'Hey Dad, come here, I want to show you something really cool. There is so much I want to show you. This is so much better.' Initially I had been in complete darkness, but when Evan called me to him, I was transported to a place of beautiful light. I was mesmerized." Mark quotes his son as saying, "I wish Mom could be here and I wish Ryan could be here. I wish we were all home together." "He is saying he loves me," the father said, "and he knows I love him. I asked him why he had to go. [He answered], 'I had to. I had to. It was my time. I don't understand, it was my time. There was no pain. My time was up. I am still not sure why...maybe I'll learn it here. I wish I could tell you.' Then Evan said it was time for me to go. 'You don't belong here,' he said. He added, 'It's wonderful here.' "Dr. Sonpal asked me the lessons I learned from Evan leaving early. I said, try hard, never give up. Reach for a place you didn't think was possible, and find it. Go deeper into things. You can do anything. Just keep reaching. "Once my session was over I expressed my surprise [to the therapist] at going to the spirit world instead of going into a past life. She said, 'You always get what you need. It's always perfect.' " For Mark and Nancy, Evan's loss remains a source of deep and daily sorrow. "But we know he's okay," said his father, "that there's more to this life. I don't have to believe what I experienced, I know. It's now a question of knowing, not believing. There's a real distinction. I don't believe in belief at all. People have these beliefs and the beliefs keep them from looking beyond." Mark spoke of Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who founded the first hospice in the U.S. because of her dealings with dying patients. "She noticed that a lot of the patients were having similar near-death experiences," he said. "Many described going through a tunnel, seeing the light, meeting with people. She was trying to find 20 patients that had near-death experiences that were similar enough that she could write a book about it. During the course of her long career she found 20,000 with near-death experiences so similar, they were almost identical to the experiences Dr. Weiss's patients were describing in the spirit world. She has written 11 books." What Dr. Kubler-Ross has discovered, Mark explained, is that everything that happens to us is designed so that we can learn the lessons we need to learn in this life. "Essentially, being on earth is being in school," he said. "Everything that happens to you, even the horrible things, are set up to help you learn these lessons...If we look at our lives as okay, we can't change anything. Unfortunately, it's sometimes not until something horrible happens to us that we start to look for answers. "I hope my book will inspire young people and people in general to question, to search for the answers," Mark stressed. "My book talks a lot about spirituality and how important it is. It's the only true way, in my opinion, that people will find true happiness. "There were 3 million teens last year that tried to commit suicide," he said. "There are many, many distraught teens living in our area who have the benefit of good homes, intact families, and yet they suffer because they can't see true happiness around them. They don't have a sense of who they really are. They are looking for the meaning in this life and it hurts them that they don't understand why we're here. "There is something more, a real tangible spiritual connection available to anyone if they look hard enough," Mark said. "There are real answers, real experiences people can have that will show them what life is all about. We found some amazing things we never thought were possible in regard to Evan, but it was because we weren't content with just belief. "This book is really my gift to anyone who reads it," he continued. "I've gone through a lot, experienced a lot. I just hope people can find some hope and solace in some of the things in the book. It's written like a journal. It shows the evolution in my thinking. I don't know how I did it, I just knew I was being given something to do. The book is positive and uplifting. Obviously it's sad, but it's about a journey, and that journey is just beginning. I've found that when we talk about our experiences, people are afraid but interested. "There are young people all around the world who can learn that one person can make a difference. Evan being here, his inspiration, made a difference in our lives and many others," his father said. "I hope his life can change the thinking of the entire world, and I won't stop because that's a part of what I'm here for. That's something I've discovered. This book is meant for the people who are open to it. There will be others who are not. It's just meant for who it's meant for. "We miss Evan desperately every day," said Mark. "People can't imagine the pain and suffering, but there's also some solace now because we've communicated with him. It made us feel comforted because we know Evan's okay and he's working on things. It's a wonderful thing to know and now believe. We desperately miss him and we love him, but it's given us reassurance that he still exists. It has made an enormous difference. "When you lose a child you discover how much of life is unimportant," he explained. "I will continue my own search. And I'm ready now to talk about it. I'm not shy. I don't care about what people think. I don't know what my destiny is but I know it has something to do with the book. I hope it is some kind of vehicle for me to talk to people, whoever is ready. "I want people to know that there is someone in their community who had something horrible happen and [that] unexpected lessons came out of it," Mark said. "I don't feel that we had any choice in following the path we did. "I don't know what's out there," he concluded, "but I do know that I want to help others. They need to have their own experiences, their own earthly adventure, just like Evan did, just like I'm having. I'm willing to help point them in the right directions to find their own way. It is up to each one of us to find it. No one can do it for you." More on "Evan's Earthly Adventure" can be found at www.evansearthlyadventure.com , or by contacing Mark Holofcener at Beyond Time Books, P.O. Box 930, Groton, MA 01450.
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