Come to Redding—Where the Sun Is Always Shining and It’s a Good Place to Come Alive – (Part 2)

.…continued from Part One.  Read Part One of Zach’s story here: 

Whether he was human or divine,  the nurse who talked to Zach for over an an hour and was never seen again, planted the seeds of sobriety in Zach. He never took another drink—even after his older sister died and he was once more facing the pain of abandonment.  Yet while he remained sober, depression clung to him like a parasitic twin—sapping him of his own identity…and any happiness he had. The only solace he took was telling his parents before they died how much he loved them and how important they had been in his life. “Had they not adopted me, I could have easily ended up in a crack house somewhere,” says Zach. “Instead, I was adopted by people who wanted me. So, moving back into the house I grew up in without my parents, man, that really ate at me.”

In 2020, Zach left the Bay Area for Mariposa—away from all the bad memories. “The last camping trip my dad and I went on was at Yosemite,” says Zach. “And I was drawn there because of that. But that plan backfired on me because there was nobody to call and say, ‘Hey, I’ve made it, I’m here. I’m in Mariposa.’  Everyone was gone.”

No More Place to Roam

Zach stayed on the run—roaming aimlessly throughout California.  He was a character in search of an author, searching for a meaning to a life that had given him nothing but pain. By the time he reached Arcata he had sunk into what felt like a bottomless pit. The cold, damp coastal weather was hardly helpful. “One day I look to the East and I see sunshine,” says Zach. “And I tell myself, “I’m going to the East.  I don’t know what’s there…I’m just going. Because I had been living in hotels for years…no family, no community, no anything. And I hate to say it, but I came to Redding knowing that was I going there to die.”

It was 2023—just over a year ago—when  Zach came to Redding.  Once again, he checked into a motel. And that’s when he planned his exit strategy: Exit stage left. Curtain down. “The play’s the thing,” but the “play” was over. No more “strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage,” living a life of quiet desperation.  The only thing Zach wanted was to be with his family.

“That’s where I had chosen to believe my family was for many, many years,” says Zach. “They’re out at the Feather River. They’re down at the Pinnacles National Park and I just want to go and be with them. And as I saw it, killing myself was the fastest way to get there.”

Zach chose to end his life in the parking lot of his storage unit, Once in his camper, he did the deed, slicing his wrist in four places. At around 9:30 pm, he passed out from the blood loss, but inexplicably woke back up at 1:30 am. He had hoped to find himself on the “other side”— dreamily watching his father and his brother fishing the Feather River while his mother and sister stood smiling and laughing around the campfire, cooking up the freshly caught trout. Instead, he found himself still very much on this “mortal coil”—slumped over in his car, his weakened body framed by the garish light on the storage unit wall above him. “I don’t know why I was still alive,” says Zach. “I was disappointed, but for some unknown reason, I decided to call 911 anyway.”

Do Devotions or Drown Myself?  Zach’s Existential Dilemma

Zach was taken to Mercy Hospital where he stayed for three days. Later, he was transferred to Kaiser Mental Health in Santa Clara. Two weeks later, Kaiser released Zach back to Redding…and to the Mission. Legally, it was the only “safe release” location they could take him to. He was at the Mission as a guest, but before he knew it, he was applying to the Recovery Program. He was accepted, even though he was not currently in any active addiction.  But an exception was made because it was clear to the Program Manager that the man standing before him was as lost a person as any he had seen come through their doors.

“For three months, I’m thinking, well, if this doesn’t work out, Sacramento River is what I’m going to do,” says Zach, still very much disappointed he had not succeeded in his attempt to join his family beyond the veil. “I’ll jump into the deepest part of the river, take in a big inhalation of water and that will be it.”

During those three months, Zach went to church, did the Genesis Bible Study, and participated in devotions at 5:45 am. Yet despite all the life-giving input, in the back of his mind, he was weighing his option to drown himself in the Sacramento River. “I had a choice. I didn’t have to stay…I could leave anytime because nobody’s forcing me to be here,” says Zach. “I don’t have an ankle monitor on and the courts didn’t send me here.”

A God Evolution

All the while something is happening inside Zach’s heart. He knows he should have died that day in that parking lot. Yet he’s still not completely grateful to be alive. All he knows is he’s not dead…and  that the God who people around him kept talking about, is hovering around. Is He talking to him? He’s not sure. He has no frame of reference because in the Bay Area, a bastion of secularism, he had zero Christian upbringing. Growing up with a science professor as a father, it was all rational thinking, logic and evolution. Where does what is happening to him fit into that? he pondered.

Then one day, without even realizing it, he made a decision…to believe there was a God and it was He who had saved him and must have done so for a reason.

That revelation would change Zach’s life.  It would even change his career path. “One morning I woke up in my dorm room and the word “phlebotomy” just popped into my head. “And that’s when I realized, I understood, that the Holy Spirit is in me, and that it’s His voice that is speaking to me. I had no idea the Holy Spirit was already in me. And I have to say, I found this to be very encouraging.”

Immediately, he went online and researched this medical specialty, then talked to his case manager about it. Within months Zach had enrolled in Cal Regional to study phlebotomy. He found the field intriguing and since he had already studied physiology in preparation for becoming a physical therapist, knowledge wise, he was already halfway there.

“It’s crazy to think just three months into the recovery program, I was constantly thinking about my exit strategy…of plunging myself into the Sacramento River,” says Zach. “And now here I am having just passed my exams in phlebotomy when I had never even thought of that as a career path before in my life. And I really think it was the Holy Spirit. Because it wasn’t my idea at all.”

Doing the Snoopy Happy Dance

Zach credits the Mission for saving his life—and for giving him a way forward instead of his having to be trapped in the past. “It’s because of Steve. It’s because of Joey. It’s because of Mike…and even this really old guy who’s a volunteer, says Zach. “I admit, I didn’t really like him at first—he was really coming on strong with this Jesus stuff—but, in the end I grew to love and appreciate him.

All these guys on staff, they all helped me. And my fellow programmers, too. And even though I am naturally an extrovert, my years of depression had turned me into an extreme introvert. But since I’ve been in the program, everybody has seen me radically turn around.”

To others thinking of getting help for what ails them, Zach has this to say. “If you want the help, it will come…not that it will be easy,” says Zach. “For me, it was very challenging. They don’t ask us to do anything too hard, but they do ask a lot. But it’s worth it, because they showed me that God is good. And I’ll be honest, that concept is still new to me because I have a difficult time proclaiming that God is good. But now I find myself thinking about it first thing in the morning and throughout the day… how good things are going for me since He’s been in my life.”

We wind up the interview with one more question. Was the irony lost on him?” I ask. Did he realize that just over 12 months ago he was sitting in a car literally draining the lifeblood out of himself with the intent of ending his life, only to wind up preparing for a career of drawing blood with the intent of saving lives? “Wow, until you just said it,” Zach confesses, “I didn’t make that connection.” “All I can say is, it wasn’t my idea at all. And just about every day, I do the Snoopy Happy Dance because I found a path forward. I no longer live in the past …of what once was.”

The Snoopy Happy Dance. Perhaps we should all be doing that dance—on the hour, every hour. Because the Son is shining in Redding and it’s a good place to be alive.