If I was ever going to finish this new album I’d have to face my fears.


That’s what I kept telling myself as I stood on the edge of Eden Lake. I hadn’t been back since that dark day over a decade ago, but it still haunted me to this day.

I took a breath and checked my phone. No service. And I dropped it on the ground, picking up the orange life vest I’d found at Walmart on the way here.

That little voice in my head was whispering as I pulled the vest over my head…beware of the lady of the lake.

“There’s no such thing,” I muttered to myself taking my first step into the water. It felt like needles on my skin.

You know there is. You saw her. Remember?

“Shut up. It’s just a nightmare.”

You blocked your memories of that night, Noah. But it doesn’t change the truth.

I started to hum my most recent single, hoping to block the voice from my head. The water was up to my knees now, and it was cold enough that my feet were beginning to go numb. I could feel the weeds snagging on my ankles as I pushed on.

You know you can’t swim…

With each new step, my lungs began to gasp from the cold as it reached my shoulders, and I started to lose the ground beneath me. But I pushed on. I had to find my song.

I tried to push off the bank, but I was caught. Some weeds had wrapped themselves around my leg. I kicked and grabbed at them to tear them away, but I couldn’t reach them with the vest on.

My gasps became quick and uncontrollable as the voice in my head finally went quiet and all I could hear was the splashing of the water as I struggled.

Then a different voice came from somewhere behind me.

A woman’s voice.

Take it off.

“I can’t!” I wept and gasped for air.

I could feel frozen boney hands wrapping themselves around my ankles and pulling me down, the life vest choking me as it tried to keep me afloat.

“It’s…just…a nightmare…she .. isn’t…real”

I was losing the fight. In a desperate attempt to breathe, I unbuckled the vest and took a deep breath before getting dragged below the surface.

I thrashed around but I was starting to see stars. Colorful images started to play out in front of my eyes as my body relaxed…and I let go.

This time the voice in my head was mine.

I remember…the way she held me below the water…thinking I was dead…I remember waking on the shore coughing up water…and I remember seeing her body floating on the lake…

Mom.

The song that played through my mind as I faded and the fear fell away to acceptance of the truth rang out in my mind like a choir. I finally knew what song I was meant to sing.

Hallelujah.