Dead
is Just a
Four Letter Word
By Deborah S. Weiler
This book is dedicated to;
The Creator that brought us all together.
The man that taught me true love is real.
Our children. I love them where ever I am.
My Mother, who walked the walk.
My sisters that I will dance with again.
The man that brought me back to God,
All of my caring and loving family and friends,
A Special Thanks:
To my dear friend, Richard Wells, for his guidance, encouragement and faith.
Without all of you this book would not be written. My love for you gave me the desire to stay, Your love for me made me strong enough to succeed. Thank you all. I love you forever.
I will see you when we get there!
***************
In December of 1984 I killed myself.
I wanted the peace of death. I wanted it now.
Like any one, I had set my own path in my youth. Don't try to blame my parents or my family for the problems in my life. I know who made my decisions, it wasn't them. Pretty much, if you just pick something that humans call bad, I did it. If I liked it then I did it again and brought friends with me.
Like one little rock rolling down hill, my decisions had created an avalanche of events and situations that were beyond my ability to control. I didn't know what had gone wrong but I knew my life was not supposed to be like this.
Oblivion was a delightful thought compared to living any longer. I had heard suicide called everything from a deadly sin to the cowards way out but I didn't care any more. I hurt.
Those two words are so small they can not convey to you how deeply in my heart I hurt. This desire for death was where my choices had brought me. I could see no way my life would be anything but the misery and useless struggle it had been since I was on my own. I wanted out of it; Out of life, out of pain, out of hurt - OUT! I was twenty nine and only wanted peace, whatever I had to do to get it.
Black funk, depression, despair, lost, friendless; I wish I could tell you how hopeless and futile any effort to move forward seemed. I felt betrayed, deceived by my own heart. I couldn't trust it again. Just the thought of love in my heart, only to have it turn to dust, made me wince. I seemed to be cursed in picking who I loved. This was just one time too many I had failed. I wanted the shame and hurt from it to stop driving me.
I could see no choice but to be alone forever or betrayed again. I had no hope of finding joy in life again. I could not bear that, the loss of hope. I could not see any chance of a happy future for me. All my experience with myself and my decisions led me to believe I would only hurt myself and others again.
My life was a trail of broken lives and promises not kept. I was so dark with the pain in my heart and spirit. No window or door appeared after the closing of this last one behind me.
I only wanted the pain to stop. Just stop. "Please let the pain stop", I chanted inside as I went through the days before this particular one. It didn't. I cried all the time I wasn't with others. I hurt all the time.
I was living alone in a small apartment in Nebraska. It was nearing New Year's Eve. On a Friday night I put together the things I needed, wrote the required note that told everyone I could think of that they were not guilty for my leaving and took the mixture that killed me.
I knew what I was taking would kill me. It was not an accident. I wanted what I saw as the gift of death. I reached out for it.
I got woozy right away. The hallucinations started. Friends appeared to try and to talk me out of what I was doing. I sat on the couch, slouched against arm, and was amazed to talk with friends I had not seen in years. They sat in the chair beside the couch or walked up and down in front of me as they talked. They were as real as you and this book are. I resisted their every effort. I knew they were not there, that they were projections of my mind.
I told them I was done dealing with being on the bottom rung of life. I couldn't pick a decent man and I didn't want to be alone. I was out of here, thanks very much for caring. I loved them and would miss them but I wasn't staying. There were two in particular, that were persistent with me. They were my best friends. They took turns giving me reasons to stay and cajoling me but I resisted their every effort.
I understand what a hallucination is and how alive they can seem. I understand the differences between reality and drugged reality. I had done enough drugs in my youth to know the effect they had on my body and mind. I was drugged but could still discerning "real" and "not real". I know it was just me talking to myself using those that I knew loved me for help. It had to be worked through completely and I went with what was happening.
I had gotten up to try and eat a last meal. I stopped cooking after a small fire on the stove top. I realized it was a trick to slow the drugs down. My survival instinct was using it on me to try to keep me alive. I wouldn't let it.
I put out the fire, threw the pan in the sink and walked back to flop down on the couch. I lay there against one arm of it like a discarded doll. I could no longer make my body move to lay all the way down or put my feet up.
The drugs overcame me finally. My breathing slowed, I could hear my heart beat slowing, then it became erratic. I wasn't worried about anyone finding me too soon. I lived alone and it was Friday night. The hallucinations stopped. I couldn't get my thoughts together. They wandered without purpose. I was too relaxed to care. My eyes fell shut. I couldn't open them. I quit trying to open them. I quit trying to do anything. I quit on life.
I died.
Let me make this perfectly plain. I killed myself. I died.
I did not "almost" die. I did not "only think" I died.
The part of me that animates my body was detached from it. There was no power to make that body function. We call that dead.
I know I was dead.
There was a feeling, an awareness, of something like a tiny "click", a pull like a cork, a release like the tension taken off a spring, as I "died". The body let go of me or I let go of it.
I knew I was "dead". If you have ever handled a dead body you know something you can't describe is gone from it. If you have seen anyone die you know the difference between a live body and a dead one. I have done both those things.
I was dead.
That's a bold statement but I stand by it. I knew I had succeeded in killing myself. I hear you asking, "OK, if you were dead how did you know you were dead?"
The answer is what I have been trying to share with each person I think this experience might help. It is, to me, the point of sharing this story.
I did not "die". You will not "die".
My body was dead. "I" was still alive. I knew it then, and know it now, as a truth.
My body stopped working. The self I am did not.
I lived.
It was quiet; Complete silence. There was no apartment noise, no neighbor noise, no traffic noise, not even body noises - nothing. I liked that, it was so peaceful.
There was darkness all around me. In that darkness I was even more aware of the complete peace of the silence. It confused me that I was aware. I knew silence, dark and the meaning of the words. I knew they were words to describe something. I knew I was thinking them.
I also knew that "I" was "moving" through that dark peace. I felt no air over skin, I saw no markers, I heard no sound of passing but I felt I was going somewhere.
I continued on for what seemed a very short time in elapsed time. I had a million thoughts as I went. Having time for so many thoughts made it seem like it should have been a longer time.
That I had thoughts confused me. I tried to understand what was happening to me. "I" was still "me". I was, apparently, alive. I could not see myself. I could not raise my hand to look at it, but I was something - I still felt like "myself".
I was still thinking and feeling - but not in a body. I was moving without legs. I couldn't see any part of myself so I assumed I had no legs, no hands, no arms, no feet or anything you would normally look at to see if it was there. I felt surprise and wonder. I knew the meaning of those thoughts, too.
I floated "higher" or further. I lack a better word for the sensation or the direction. Still, I knew I was moving to someplace. There are no words that describe it well. I moved toward some other place from where I was. I was drawn there, not going there. It was not my power that moved me.
I was no longer in my body. I knew I was not on this planet. I knew that "I" was not dead, not the way we mean the word. I was not un-alive, not unaware. I was "dead", had no body I could see, but I knew I lived. I just didn't know why or how. I couldn't figure it out.
I felt alive but I knew I was dead in our way of believing in death. I probably can't explain it better than that. To discover that I was not dead , when I had just killed myself left the me confused and amazed.
A thought came to me. For one moment I was so sad my children and my mother would be grieved by my death. I regretted the pain my death would cause the family.
Then something changed in me. That sad thought faded away and I was overcome by a deeply peaceful joy. It was like I left all the cares and concerns that are so much a part of us with my body. They were gone from me.
It was a healing of my heart and a removal of my pain and grief so complete I felt it like a rock was lifted from me.
I was all done with the responsibilities we create here for the living. I had no fears, no shame, no pain, no broken heart, no thing left to do. I was released. I didn't have to pay the bills or go to work ever again.
All the hurt I knew in life was gone from me. I had no responsibility toward others now. They would be loved and cared for still. I would always love them. I had no shame or sadness that I had hurt them. It was gone from me and I was filled with the comfort of knowing they would be cared for.
I was filled with joy by that knowing. It was a joy that was real. I could have danced it, sang it. I had NO emotional pain, no physical hurts. What I had seen as terrible pain, shame, grief and lack of love on this earth were no longer were hurting me. They had no effect on me anymore. I felt only the JOY of the release from the pain, the shame, the feeling that I could never take care of the ones I loved right. It was all lifted from me.
How much of my life's pain was of my creating and how much of it was from others didn't matter anymore. Not one thought of what I believed was bad in my life hurt me. I could not feel a pain anywhere. I tried to remember the things that made me chose death and could not feel the pain of them. Like sitting down a heavy load after a time of holding it up, I was released from the pain of everything that ever hurt me. If I had had a way to do so I would have cried with the joy of it. I was Free!
Even though I knew these things had happened, I had the memories, I could not feel any hurt or shame in myself. It was such a relief! That pure joy filled me up. I can't tell you how wonderful that feeling is with words. I can only repeat myself trying.
Bliss; It's a small word. I think it is one we only feel here like a shadow of what it really means. Anyone who has ever been hurt and had the medicine take effect to stop the pain knows the relief that "absence of pain" can be. Something that to many here is not even a reality to be lost, just the lack of pain, is a treasure to someone who hurts.
When I began this I was in a deep, black heart hurt clear to my bones and now I was freed of that and bliss is the only word that even whispers of the feeling in me as the pain not only was stopped, but removed. The pain was gone and all threat of pain in my heart or body was gone. No one could hurt me again, not even me! I could hurt no one again, ever! I was so comforted! I didn't hurt anymore. I was at peace in myself. Finally, I knew the meaning of peace in my heart. I believe it was the first touch of the Love and Grace reaching out to me.
As this feeling passed through me I saw, off to my right, a golden glow, a light in the darkness, like a city's lights on the night sky. It lit the way for me. The light was shining, just over there from me.
I say "I saw" but I had no eyes. It's another confusion with words and concepts I can't say well here. But I could see the golden light. It was like a candle behind a gauze curtain. Muted, but against the darkness, showing a vivid brightness.
I turned to face it but I had no face. I had no body I could turn. But I did what felt like turning to face it.
I looked toward it, wanting to be there and not alone in the dark. I was moved. Instead of feeling like I was moving toward it all of a sudden I was just there. Like the transporter on Star Trek; first you are here, then you are there. I arrived.
The curtain effect was gone. The light was crisp and bright now. I felt like I belonged. I was in the right place now. Whatever this place was it was where I was supposed to be. There was no fear, only curiosity and yearning.
In front of me was an opening in a barrier built of golden light. It appeared to be a low wall, that ran in front of me. It seemed to be built of glowing, golden rocks. Like a stone wall with a small opening for a gate it seemed to me. It was a border, not a defensive wall, it seemed. Too low for protection it just marked the boundary of what ever place this was.
I was aware of another, smaller "glow" behind me and to my left, on the same side of the barrier as I was. It stood between me and the dark I had come from. I didn't know what it was. It felt like a protector is the closest I can come. The being who stood behind me felt like it had my back, if I had one still. I never saw this one very well. It wasn't much larger than me, but it felt bigger and stronger.
Beyond the opening and over the top of that barrier I could see an immense, golden, glowing globe shape that seemed "way over there." I don't think it was a far distance but I had no way to measure. I just knew it was "over there" and I was "over here". It was golden and white with the light it gave off. It seemed huge yet far away.
There were more glowing globes, smaller ones, that gave off their light in the distance. There were some at the rear of the base of the large one, in a cluster or group. They were right up next to it but not part of it.
I saw some more "glowing globe shapes" off to my left. It was like a line of them approaching the largest sphere. They appeared to be different sizes, but that could have been distance. There was no way for me to know that, either. I had no concept of my own size except in relation to things appearing smaller or larger than I seemed to be. All these words are comparative, not absolutes. I had no way to judge.
It felt as if I remained by the place I call the gate for a short moment, taking it all in and processing it. Suddenly, I changed position. Again, I did not feel the movement of the change, only that the power that moved me was not mine. I went from where I was to another position without willing it myself. Something besides me moved me. I can't think of a better way to say it.
Think of picking up a caterpillar and displaying it on your hand in front of your face. Now be the caterpillar. It was something like that, I think.
I wasn't by the barrier any more. I could not see it anywhere. I had a feeling it was to my right and lost in the distance. All I could see was the huge, brilliant light now directly in front of me. I felt examined. I looked right at it, in curiosity.
I was right in front of and dead center (sorry, pun accidental) of the largest glowing globe of light I had seen. What I learned next amazed me. I discovered that the glowing, golden globe of light was alive. It was a "self". It was a living, aware, loving being.
We were the same! We were both living beings. It was huge, loving and powerful, strong and gentle all at the same time. I felt small and confused but I knew it was alive. It knew "self and other" the same way I did still. I wasn't dead, it wasn't dead, but it didn't look "human". It felt human to me.
I was aware that this being of light was aware of itself as alive and living. It was aware of me in the same way. It was strange to look at something I thought of as so different from me and find out it was not different. This felt like a surprising discovery; Kind of a "Hey, it's another soul!" Not so much that it was "human" and had been living on earth but I recognized it was another living, aware self.
When you meet a human you know it's another human no matter what the body that contains it looks like. A cat or dog is alive but not human. A flower or grass is alive but we don't see them as human, either, just another life form. Some animals push the line and feel "almost human" to us, but we know they are animals still.
That being was "human" or "like me" in feeling but powerful beyond description. I was fascinated by it. We were alike and alive but I was in awe of it. That Being was so much more in every way than I was that I felt small compared to it. I felt physically smaller. I felt my lack of my control over my self as less powerful.
The essence of it, the "self" or, rather, "selflessness" of it is so much harder to tell. I felt the power the Being appeared to create and that was sent out from it. It was like standing in the sun but instead of sunshine LOVE warmed you. It was like nothing and no one I have ever seen or met but I knew it only loved. There was no other word close to what I experienced. Pure Love came from that being.
The Power of Love created and sent out by that being was a force, like electricity is a force. I could feel it being sent out and touching everything around it. I try to write it and there are no experiences in my life to compare it to that captures the essence of what I felt. It was unlike anything on this world.
That being was composed of love; It created love, it emitted love, it directed love. It lived on love. It was Love; Love the Power. There was nothing in that entire experience with the other Divine Loving Being that was not totally "good" and powered by "love".
I have to use the words we know here. They mean something far more than I can express with them. There was nothing negative in all of that being, or in my self or anything or other one around me.
There was no "evil, wicked, mean or nasty", the ideas would not even work to show the opposite of love I felt. They could not be expressed. They were not possible there. Bad, negative, evil, none of that existed there. All I could think is "There is only Love. It is only good."
This other being was much larger and more powerful than I was. I felt no fear of it. There was only a complete acceptance of the rightness of the moment; I knew I was safe and loved. I only felt more curious. I wanted to understand what was happening to me. I wanted to know this powerful "other self" that held me.
As you gather information meeting a new person for the first time by seeing how they stand, how they speak and form an idea of them, we met. The phrase, "We stood looking at each other" is right but misleading.
Neither of us had a leg to stand on, a place to put it if we had one or eyes to see with as we know them here. I have to use the words I can find that fit best. It is not easy.
It was like forming a first impression in your mind but so flooding of my senses that I struggled to comprehend the completeness of this other entity. It was just too big for me to grasp, though I tried.
I knew that other self was what held me where I was. It was who had drawn me closer. Now I learned it knew me. It knew me in all I was, in all my life, in all my truth. I could not hide anything from it. I had no desire to hide anything. I felt no fear or shame that it "saw" all of me. Then came to me the first hint of truly understanding the meaning of the word "grace."
That being knew all of everything I ever was and loved me. Not just loved me but every thing that defined me as my self, unique from any other bit of creation, was wonderful to it. It loved the way I was made, it loved that we were meeting, it loved me with all the love it had in it. It's love over powered me. I knew that I was precious to it and treasured by it. I was perfectly what I was supposed to be and it loved me just that way.
If I was a diamond, I was flawless, perfectly cut, beyond beautiful. I could not be loved more by that being. Not one thing in me needed to be changed for that being to love me. I was perfect - in it's eyes - as I was made. I felt it think at me, "As I made you, I did you perfectly!" With joy, it loved me, as I was, completely.
That Being loved me so deeply that it would never hurt me. It only wanted my complete, loving self to be all the me I was created to be. I did not have to change. That which is my true and ever living self is perfect. I didn't have to be anything but just me. Truth lies there. Unconditional love sees only the beauty of the truth of love in each living spirit.
We began to communicate when I understood it was "speaking" to me. Then I knew it could "hear" what I wanted to share with it. It was not with spoken words but more like with complete thoughts with no possibility of misunderstanding. It was a true communication of perfect understanding between two spirits.
I would "ask" then would "know", the answer from the golden, glowing, loving being. I had no lips to speak and no ears to hear but I heard and spoke somehow. So did it. I reveled in that complete, pure, communication. There was no possibility of misunderstandings or evasions. There were no words to confuse the issue, only the truth of learning and knowing each other between us.
This is how we were supposed to communicate and understand between two people. It's that "heart to heart" talk taken to the ultimate level. I feel the lack of it here. Words are so bulky and awkward compared to just "showing" you how I feel or what I think. In every sentence I write here I feel the weight and awkwardness of these words.
I have little memory of all that passed between us. We "talked" for a time, in loving joy at being together. I was small and asking questions. It was "answering" me, giving me what I felt a need to know as fast as I could conceive the question in my thoughts. I didn't have to ask some things, they were just showed or told to me.
I "knew" (was told?) that being loved me just as I was. I did not need to change one thing to be perfect. I was perfect to it. I knew it felt a true joy in being with me. I felt like it was just bursting with happiness because I was there. It was beyond glad to see me, it loved me. It thought I was just perfectly made and was thrilled that we were together. I repeat this because it amazed me.
That huge and powerful entity made me feel like being with me made it's life worth living, complete. I was giving it joy by just being there. How could someone or some thing I never even knew be so loving of me? How could it be so glad to be with me that it seemed like it's shine brightened when I joined it?
I was so loved! I was loved completely and just as I was, as all I was. Small, confused, dead by my own hand, I was cherished and loved. I was precious to it. I responded to that with my own thoughts of my joy in the peace, love and total acceptance it was giving me. I tried to love it back with my little self.
The being knew I loved it and that I was thankful for it's love of me. Then it love me more. I loved it more. A cycle of pure love between us grew. It was like the most wonderful, perfect joining of hearts between two beings you can imagine. I call it perfect communion.
There came a pause in our "talk". Instead of ideas passing between us there was a change in the way we communicated.
I had been seeing that other self as a large, white haloed ball of light with a golden, glowing center. It was all I could see. It filled my whole view. In the silence now between us there was a change in my perspective. What I was seeing changed but I didn't feel like I moved.
Now I saw a long oval of light with a pattern of tiny blocks in rows seeming to moving all along it's length. A glowing golden light came off it like a sun and the love you could feel was like the large Loving Being sent out. This one was smaller. I asked that being what it was that was so pretty and so loving. It answered me. "This is you."
I was seeing myself from it's own vision, some how. It saw me as a beautiful, perfect, shining, living being, full of love and peace, filled with joy. I saw myself, but I saw me as it did, a being of golden light and love.
There was nothing I could do that would make me better. I was perfect just as I was. I was so loving and beautiful, seen from it's "eyes". The self of us is made of love and the love we are shines like a sun there. Me! I was beautiful! It didn't just tell me that, it showed me. I saw me. I loved me for the first time I could remember. I could have cried with the joy of seeing I was loving, like it was.
I saw the truth of what I was in it's view. I was filled with joy in the knowledge that I was a loving self and I loved the being who showed me the love in my self. It showed me that, yes, we were alike, we are both living, we both are of Love.
I knew all of me the way that being knew me and I saw that each experience and person here was a part of me still. Each part of my life was needed to make me completely what I was; Perfect in it's eyes. I would appear to be perfect again today if I stood there, even though I have changed over the years.
That is the meaning of Love's grace. You are loved as you are; Not as what you wish to be, not as you should or could have been, not as someone else says you ought to be, but only for what you are now. It can show you that in the way it sees you. It's hard to see in your own eyes here.
In that Loving Being's view the truth of what you are is changed. You see only the loving goodness in you, as you were created. There is no shame or guilt because you no longer have a reason to feel it. It's gone. Your life and your spirit are changed back to what they would have been if you did everything right. There is nothing to regret or be sorry for any more. Grace changes it all.
I was at peace with myself. Nothing hurt. I could only see my life and self through that Being's Love. There was no negative in myself or from that Being for anything I had done, including killing myself. It was changed by the power of the Truth of Love with which it was seen. That Loving Grace, total acceptance, complete love and truth created a joy in me. I saw that love was in me, too, not just from the Being shining down on me, it was in me as part of myself. I was full of love and peace. I felt the joy in that truth. l have no right words for it.
I knew I was good. I saw I was good. I was not just "okay". I was perfect and I was loving and I was good, not just in it's view anymore. It let me know that in my own judgment.
To see my self as good again, like I knew I was when I was a child - oh, my heart, how I wish to keep that feeling with me here. How I wish I could give that feeling to you. Only the Divine Love can grace you with it. Each one can only find it, through that Divine Love, for them self.
Then I was looking back at it again, shining down on me. There was another feeling of change. I felt like I was moved closer to that being. I have tried to tell people how it appeared to me but words are inadequate. Still I attempt it.
Imagine a large, round, globe shaped zinnia. It's deep golden in the center and composed of many tiny petals. Starting at the center a small circle of golden petals appeared to come out from inside the being itself. There were four petals in this first circle. See each tiny petal as a moving, golden flame going outward from an ever refilled center.
Each petal seemed to stay the same size but each row of petals magically multiplied to increase the circle it was part of to a size that kept covered that rings area of the globe.
They were not expelled from it, like waste, but becoming, being created, from the power of the love within that Being. Creation as love made real, manifested. I believe each living thing has been created by the Power that is the Divine Love.
As the rows of petals or flames traveled to reach the visible edge of the "body" of that Being, the color intensified. Each petal changed from the golden hue it had at the center ti a glowing white hot shade. The being was radiating an aura around itself so pure the color can't be named.
Yet the center never stopped putting out new circles of flaming petal shapes. The glow I saw around it I felt as a radiation of love on me. Like the sunlight on a hot day touches your skin, love touched me.
The whole being never moved yet it's apparent surface was constantly in motion. That is the closest I can get to explaining its physical appearing self.
It did not have to let me see it so closely that I could see the tiny circle of four petals burst forth from the center. It was an intimate detail of itself that it shared with me, a very close up view. I believe it not only loved me but it wanted me to know it, all of it, as it knew me.
That was the greatest gift it gave me. It loves me so much it wanted me, little ol' 'killed myself me', to know it better and to love it, too. It wanted my love given to it freely, knowing all of it. It wanted to be loved by me the same way it loved me, knowing all of me and choosing to love it, with no limits.
With a new friend we listen to them tell us about their life. We get to know each other better over the time we have together. Because we love we want to share all of ourselves and we want to know all of them. It "showed" or told me of itself.
There was more than the looking, there was a learning of that loving being that I have little remembrance of but I know it was real. I knew it like I know my mother or sisters. It had showed me it knew me. Now it let me know the unique self it is.
It didn't want to love me like a pet or like a possession, it wanted to love WITH me, like a friend. It WANTED me to know and love it just the way it was with an unconditional love. Being loved and loving was as needed to that self's joy as being loved and loving is to me.
As worthless as I saw myself, that I had killed myself, all that I had done wrong in my life, and still that being didn't just love me, it wanted to BE loved by me. It said and showed the truth of that to me, I felt it. It wanted my love. I was desired as a personal, loving friend. To love like that I had to really know it, all of it. That is what it showed me. It's true self.
I loved it, but it had loved me first and I loved it for loving me. I wish that I could explain how precious that was to me; To be wanted when I didn't even want myself. I had just killed me. To be told I was not only desired as one to love, but that it wanted me to love it. That I was sought out in such a way by one so loving was more than I could understand.
What greater love is there than a love that reaches out to you and says, "I will always love you", then shows you all they are, not knowing if, in the telling, something will make you judge them someone you can't love. It made itself vulnerable to my rejection. How could I not love a being that trusted me with all of it's true self?
That being already KNEW me before I arrived there. It chose to love me and wanted me to love it, KNOWING all of it. I wasn't asked to love blindly. I was showed the self that wanted me to love it. It wanted to be chosen by me as one that I would love. It had loved me before I was human, it loved me before I was born, it loved me being back with it, but most of all, it loved that I loved it, too.
It was joy filled that I loved it. I was in a state of bliss from the love we shared. So was my new friend, the Divine Loving Being. Our perfect understanding in complete Love was, and could only be, Divine.
I was HOME. That is what it felt like, the ultimate homecoming. I was where I was meant to be. I fit perfectly there. I was so glad to be there, loving with that being. "It was where I was meant to be" is as close as I can put it. To be together with that other, loving self was the perfect place for me to exist.
I loved at the Being of Divine Love and it loved back at me. There is no other way to express what we were doing. While it was a sharing of thoughts it was cumulative. It just got closer and better as we went. We shined on each other.
Then came the blow I didn't know was coming. My loving friend had one more thing to tell me.
I had to go back, this was not my time.
I had no choice in this. It was not in mine to decide. It was in that being's power to send me back. That being had the power to return me to my life here. Whatever it was I needed still was more important than my need to escape my temporary misery. I had to believe this. There was nothing between us but truth.
It was only done of love. That self could only do what it felt was the most loving thing for me. To hurt me would be to hurt itself in a literal way I can't explain well.
I was going to have to go back. I had to live. It touched the heart of me with its love and truth. "I am sending you there now" came to me. There was no reason given that I recall. It was the way it was. It is the way it is. It was not in my power to change it.
I had been comforted and shown a Divine Loving Being and part of the place we go when our bodies die. I knew I was loved and that I loved and that we do not die. I had been given a gift in this experience. But I could not stay. I didn't have to choose. My new friend, in it's love for me, chose for me.
There was no sensation of motion. There was no concept like "good bye". I felt a severing of our direct connection. It's difficult to describe. We were joined together in every way you can imagine, talking, thinking, loving, learning... Then I was alone again.
I was back by the barrier and by the smaller light that had been behind me when I arrived. I was still looking toward the Divine Being, now "over there" from me again. Then it was all gone.
Unlike the perceived time it took me to go to that place through the darkness I saw nothing this time. It was just - Poof! - I was back. It felt that quick. I was coughing and gagging and back in my body. My body wasn't dead anymore.
Again, I lived.
I woke gagging and crying and gasping for breath. It hurt to breathe. Tears ran down my face to my chest. I started sobbing harder, in deep grief again. I still couldn't figure out exactly what was happening. I wasn't dead, I knew that much. I opened my eyes. I looked up to see a friend standing there, smiling at me
.
This really confused me. I knew that friend was not in the same state with me. I knew it couldn't really be him. Who ever it was, he pulled me up, tears and all, from the couch. My legs would not support me. He put his arm around me to hold me up. He got me to the bathroom. I collapsed next to the seat. I grabbed on to hold myself up. It was all I could do just to hang on. I was still crying hard.
I heard the water run. He handed me a glass. He just looked at me, gently smiling and I knew I had to drink it. He had to hold it for me. I could not let go the seat. I would have slid to the floor. Just seconds later the vomiting started. He pulled my hair back, holding it out of my way. I vomited some more. Hard, violent spasms shook my body. My throat and stomach burned from the acid.
I finally choked to a stop, breathing in gulps, and tried to clear my sinuses. When he tried to get me to drink from the glass again I balked. Then I drank it all down. I threw that up, too.
I got my breathing under some sort of control, it was easier now. My crying hiccupped to a stop, almost. Tears still dribbled down my face. My sobbing stopped.
I crawled up from the floor using the sink for support and managed to get to my feet. I leaned heavily against the sink, one hand holding on it, too. My friend was still there. He stood watching me, staying near enough to help.
I began the ritual of brushing my hair then washing my hands and face with cool water. I felt a little less run over by a truck. My skin was cold and clammy. I was still very shaky. When I turned to go back to the couch I started to fall. My friend caught me. He helped me back to the couch. I laid down gladly.
He brought me a blanket and covered me. I hadn't been tucked in for along time. I tried to thank him but I was fading out. I saw him sit in the chair beside me. I pulled the blanket up to my chin. I felt safe and watched over. I slept.
I don't remember anything else until I woke in time for work on Monday. There was no one there with me. I believe there was no one there the whole time. I believe what I saw as my friend was an angel. By looking like my friend he wouldn't scare me. I know I wasn't afraid even though I knew the man I thought it was could not be there.
I don't know how long the experience lasted. Time had no meaning there. I don't know that I slept two complete days. If it all happened on Friday I must have slept that long. I only know that it was Monday when I woke up.
I can't say how I knew that. I just knew it was time to get ready for work. I started my routine. I showered, dressed, made coffee and grabbed the big travel cup. I wanted LOTS of coffee. Somehow I was ready when my ride got there. I let them know I wasn't feeling real well but went to work anyway. It's what you do, make it to work, no matter what.
I had what I thought were more hallucinations during the day but some of them have happened since then. That would make them visions, not hallucinations. I dreamed vividly for many nights. I wrote it all down in my journal.
I had kept a diary in my teens. When my life went sour I went back to writing for myself. In 1984 I had journals going back five years to the failing first marriage in 1979. I kept them all. Months and years later, when things I had seen or dreamed became realities in my life, I could look them up and read them as I first wrote them down. I could believe I had been shown things from my future by that encounter. It proved my sanity to me and it proved the truth of the experience. Those writings burned up in '89 when we lost our home.
I wish I still had them. If I could have scanned it in here with the worn pages, dates, errors and notes in the margin you would have been more likely to believe me. I would have had my first words and descriptions of how this seemed to me. I have only my recollection. I can only hope you can feel how true this is for me.
At work that day the most vivid thing I recalled and wrote down was watching a black and white plush cat give birth to four black and white kittens. She was under the machine stored across from me. I could hear her cries, then her mama talk to the kittens. I went to check on her and she wasn't there. I would go back to my machine and see her again. I couldn't see or touch her if I got close to her.
One of the dreams that meant the most to me I remembered in vivid detail. It was a dream of the boy I had loved in high school.
I dreamed I was riding a motorcycle. I hadn't ridden but twice in the last ten years. I looked into the round rear view mirror and saw him behind me on my left on his own motorcycle. His best friend, on his bike, was following both of us. We were coming up a hill on a two track road from a river I could see behind me through a shady tunnel of trees.
I had other dreams and thoughts in those days I wrote down. Some of them did not happen but after that I never looked at dreams quite the same way as I had before I "died."
Over time I slowly started to feel connected to the world again. I went right back to thinking I had to do something, pay bills, work, move, something, to justify my existence. I went on with being here, being alive as we know it. I forgot about this experience for a long time because I knew it was not going to be believed, I didn't want to be called crazy. I just filed it under "Forget". It proved hard to do.
When I got back on my feet physically and had saved up some money I left Nebraska and went to Florida. I stayed there with my friend that couldn't have been with me. I shared the experience with him and his friends.
They let me stay with them but I had trouble finding a good job. Things just seemed to go from miserable to worse. I worked in an ice cream parlor in a mall during the day. I played music in lounges and sang for tips in the evenings. I ate the treats they put out for happy hour for meals. I wasn't getting anywhere.
I wasn't feeling any better about my life. I was still sad and now I was sad and broke and hungry. I finally gave it up. I called my Mom. She helped me get home. I came back to where it all began when I was just a teen.
I was searching for the wrong turn I took. I wanted to get my life straightened out. My family and children all lived here. I started seeing my kids again. That was a joy for me. I loved the lakes and land in Michigan. It was a comfort to be in familiar places again.
I found old friends and made new ones. I got a decent job. I met again the boy I had loved when we were in High School. We knew from the moment we first spoke that there was love still between us. There is another story there.
In 1986 he helped me find the first motorcycle I had bought for myself. It was a little CB 360 Honda. It had been a long time since I had ridden. I had to practice quite a while. One day he called and said he was off to meet a friend who was riding down from up north. Did I want to go along? I did, of course and you can probably guess the rest. I'll tell it anyway.
The two of them and their friends had ridden the same routes for years. They had regular places to watch for each other on the road and meet. My friend pulled into a gravel two track about half way there. We saw his friend was already parked and waiting for us.
It was really my first long ride and I was still unsure on the bike. When we went to leave, they had me go first to keep an eye on me. It was a pot holed road up a hill. I started out all right. Then it happened.
I was almost back to the black top we had come in from. I glanced into my mirror. I felt the dream close around me. The dejavu was so strong I felt kind of "lost between". There was the boy I loved and his best friend behind me in my mirror just as I had seen it before.
Then I hit a little pot hole and had to put a foot down to catch the bike. They teased me about it at the top of the hill. I didn't even defend myself. I was too lost in my thoughts. I knew what had just happened to me. I was riding in the time of the dream. I just dropped back behind them and followed them south. It was all I could do to concentrate on the ride.
When I got back to my place I dug up the journal from that time. I went through until I found what I wanted. Then I asked my friend to come over. I was pretty shaky as I handed it to him. I just said, "Would you read this, please." He did.
It was in much more detail than I have shared here. I knew the colors of the bikes, I knew who rode them, I knew the angle of the sun. He was disbelieving but could see it was the true. He knew it was the afternoon we had just shared from the description.
He tried to find ways to discount it but neither of us could come up with one that worked. It was written months earlier. After that I let him read the rest of this as it was in the journals with the dreams and visions I had seen. God bless the man for loving me still. It scared him more than a little. He was a believer in God, too.
We moved in together in 1986. In 1987 the cat I had named Butch when he brought her home, had her first litter of four kittens under the edge of the bed. I could see her but not reach her. She was black and white and not a short hair or a long hair. I called her a medium fuzzy or plush.
That night I showed him the entry about the cat. Each kitten was described. He just closed it when he finished and handed it back without a word. But his eyes told me he believed. I needed to remember that later.
We married in 1988. Life for us was close to the bone. It never mattered what we had or where we lived, to us. That we were together every day was all it took to make us happy. We were in love. We were friends joined at the heart.
There are many stories of our life and love I could tell, they are not really a part of this one. Whenever we rode on the motorcycles I followed him like a shadow. That might be something you should know. Every one else did that rode with us. You risked your life to cut between us. He was almost always my trail breaker and I had his back door.
We did almost everything as a team, he was Boris to my Natasha or John to my Yoko, as he would say. We went through our days, love always between us.
Then it ended.
I loved that man and he loved me the best we knew how every day. I had a speaking relationship with God in my joy through the years. I would pray for the kids and the family and friends but I mostly thanked Him for my mate. I called blessings down on him regularly. I thanked Him for the joy in my life.
From the year before I met the mate, when I just wanted to die, I was now content in my days and life. While it was life and had it's messes and pains, it was good. Our love was truthfully deeper every day we were together. True Love wasn't a fairy tale anymore. It was something real for us.
In 2006, on a winter day, I was just getting up for work. I heard him running water and doing chores as I pulled on a shirt. I heard the breath whoosh out of him as he slipped, gasped, and then fell so hard the boards under my feet shook. I was sitting on the side of the bed at least twenty feet and a room from him. I knew what had happened as if I had seen it.
I didn't finish dressing. I ran. I slid into first at his side. He wasn't breathing, he wasn't seeing me, there was water all over the floor from the bucket he was carrying.
He had fallen so hard he broke the hinges out of the bottom of the door. The door was jammed between his neck and shoulder. It was on the main artery, I thought. I had to decide if his neck was broken or to move him out to do CPR.
I made the call, moved him out and started as I had been trained. I thought I had gotten him breathing on his own again. I ran for the phone, called 911. While I answered stupid questions, he stopped breathing. I threw down the phone without disconnecting.
I continued with the CPR. I knew that I was losing him. There was no real response to anything I tried and I tried everything. I was doing strong chest compress ions then, with two small death rattles, he left me. He went on, ahead of me again.
I could hear the sirens. "Too late, guys," I thought. I got up, took the phone and went into the next room. I made two calls. One lasted the longest eight minutes I have ever lived as I waited with a friend to see if my mate would live. The other was to work to say I would not be in, I thought my husband was dead.
It really was just, POOF! He was gone. It was a hard way to start a day. I hadn't even had my coffee yet. It was a strange thing to think but I knew he had his. There was the cup by the sink.
Every night before I went to bed I made a pot of coffee for so it would be ready and fresh for him. That first pot was gone. He had made a second pot for me so I would have enough to take to work. There would be a cup apiece to share with him before I left for the day.
It was part of how we loved each other, in these little things we did. I could see there was a cup for me in the pot. The rest would be in the carafe.
As I spoke with the medics and police I drank the last pot of coffee lovingly made just for me by my mate. The coffee in the carafe we used was hot and rich.
He was gone. I was lost. It was a blow to my life that no one who knew us thought I would get past. Everyone that knew the love we shared thought I would follow him, even our children. Many of them hadn't known me before the mate.
I had experience in being alone and doing for myself. For years I followed where ever he lead. Now I had to walk alone again. I didn't try to follow him, but I had lost my balance and my happiness. I was tempted to go, but I stayed.
Nothing I tried stopped the grief of losing him. I struggled with it everyday. I cut my hair and I wore black. I had promised him a year and a day. Through every one of them I made it. Somehow I stayed.
I held on when I was with others and flew apart when I was alone. I made it through the first weeks one hour at a time. One more chore, one more call, one more piece of paper to file, the tasks led me into the future. One little effort at a time I got further into a world with no love in my days anymore.
After two weeks I was back at work. I got a phone call from a vendor in California I have sent some customers to on occasion. He said he didn't need anything but felt he needed to call me all morning. He finally did to get it off his mind.
I know he is a believer and I knew what he said was truth for him. At that time I just thought it was coincidence. Later I felt it was directed, I know he believes that, too.
I told him that I had been dealing with a lot as my mate died 30 days ago. That was how it felt, like I had done 30 days in jail or something. Then I choked up.
He left a long pause while he digested that. Anyone that has known me more than ten minutes knows I love my mate. It was just one of the things in my life that always came up in conversation. I loved that man and he loved me and I loved talking about it.
The caller is a very kind man and a strong Christian believer with a loving marriage and good partner. He was really saddened by the news. He offered pretty standard but very sincere condolences.
Then he shared that he had lost his son about 4 months ago and his brother just before that. One of them went just out of the blue with a massive coronary. I could feel his pain and grief. I wanted to comfort him and his wife if I could find the words. He touched my heart in his own grief and made mine look small to me It was the first time I felt like that. It would not be the last.
This event came back to me as clearly as if it all happened the day before. It was like a connection just got power back to it again and a light came on in the dark of a storm. I remembered it fully as I experienced it. I had to share it.
I told him, "Listen, I want to tell you about where your son and your brother are and why I know they are okay." I had to try to comfort him, even in my grief.
When I got off the phone I realized it had taken quite a long time. The boss had noticed I was tied up with something. I went to explain why I had been on the phone so long without a sale. I told him the man had lost his son and brother and I tried to comfort him. I started to tell him what I had shared.
Then he says, "That sounds like this book." He got it out of his briefcase and hands it to me. It is on a woman's experience with a near death experience.
I didn't even look at it. I just handed it back and said, "Does it go something like this?" I told him the story. He and I were both touched by the phone call, my story and the book by another woman. The "coincidences" were just beginning.
He closed us up early. It was a kindness to me. I was pretty freaked out. I had planned to go to town that night. I needed to get a permit to purchase a pistol so I could put the mate's in my name.
The woman behind the desk and I were getting off on the wrong foot. I was trying to be funny and she was taking everything seriously. I said, "Whoa, back up! Can we start over?" Then I burst into tears and told her I was only getting the pistol legal because I was a woman alone in a rural area with a high crime rate and just had lost my mate.
Funny thing, her attitude and mine had changed with my words. She and her man were true lovers, she said. She is still here and still single after 12 years alone. She understood my fear and knew my pain as a widow.
She told me to be comforted, that those we love don't die. Then she said that she had a near death experience. Hers was different than mine, but only in setting, not in what she believes from it.
I told her the reason I couldn't even wish the mate back is I know where he is and I always wanted what made him happy. I told her mine. We saw the matching truths in them even though they were not identical in what we saw and did. I got the permit and we parted friends.
This was the third repetition of my story and a new one added to it. I am getting a little more freaked out. Puzzled isn't the right word for it, mystified is closer. What was going on?
When I walked in the house the phone rang as I came in the door. It was a friend who had left me a gift. They were calling to see if I had found it. They had left it on Tuesday and this was Friday. I hadn't called them to thank them.
I had to say it was because I hadn't seen it. I walked out and found it still there. We started out discussing gifts and I learn this friend also believes in God. I had not known that.
I started to share my day and tell them I feel like a kid that has to write "I will not slam the door" a hundred times. I don't know what it was that I was not getting. I shared this story with that friend. Their comments were comforting and helpful. I got off the phone feeling better. It meant a lot to me that they listened as I got it off my chest.
I thought it would be all done then, but it wasn't. My mom called with some information. I had to tell her the story just to tell her how my day went. It was getting late by now. If I had had the journals I would have just gone back and gotten it out to read over.
There was something I wasn't getting, I knew it. I just didn't know what it was. I knew I had to blog it. After telling it so many times that day I wrote it down again. I went to copy it before hitting publish and hit just the wrong key by mistake. It was deleted.
I freaked but knew it meant something wasn't right. I had to write it again. Seven times in one day I had to repeat it. I was officially freaking out about it by now. The second time it published okay. I finally went to bed.
My experience with my own "death" was being compelled from me. I was forced to examine it, think about it, remember it in detail. I tried to understand why I had to repeat it.
That day continued into a weekend of meeting grieving people and sharing it with them. I can't even say now how many times I had to tell it. It kept coming up in the conversation. Usually whoever I was talking to said something about death or dying and then I would offer it for what comfort they could find in it.
All that first long year I had to refer to this event in my life. I tried to comfort people that felt separated from their loved ones, myself included. I had to remember this very personal experience as clearly as possible. I had to share my belief, my KNOWING, that there is life next, not death.
This didn't change my grief. The light and joy had gone out of my days. I spoke no more in prayer. I spoke in tears if I spoke of the mate. I could not shut up some times and some days I did not speak at all. I could not see love anymore, even when it was poured out on me.
This story was drawn from me over and over again as I tried to tell others that grieved we do not die, we live. I was being made to remember it for a reason. I still believe that. I kept going over this trying to get my heart to heal and put the spirit in me back in one piece.
There was a time just after the mate died that I felt a physical absence in the meat of my chest. I realized one day it was where I had looked to know if he needed me or something from town or if I should give him a call. It was the place in me that we were bonded, I believe. It was just a gaping hole for days and days. Slowly that place in me healed.
Without the love showed me here by others I love I would have followed after that man that held so large a part of my heart and life and soul. Trying to begin a day without him was like waking up in the wrong world. I didn't belong where he wasn't with me. I tried to keep "on the planet" but I was losing my grip and it hurt because I could see it.
I could see what I was doing and I understood I was doing it badly. I was looking for comfort and help and there was no one who felt they could give it. I was all in pieces inside and "falling apart" doesn't even begin to describe it.
I would be screaming "No, don't say that, don't do that" in my head but my body and mouth were going on without me. I am pretty sure that means I was clinically crazy. I could only keep it together with my family and a few close friends.
Every one else was dealing with me as kindly as possible but I felt driven to keep seeking help. It was just all the me that was left. There wasn't much left except the panic driven, hurting woman. One who thought she had let her man die in her arms because she wasn't good enough to save him.
I kept thinking he might have lived if I could have done CPR better or I had called the EMT's sooner or if I hadn't moved him or moved him faster or if I had woken up earlier and called his name...the list of "ifs" was long. None of these were true but I tried to find a reason he was taken from me with no warning.
We always think it is because we have been bad, or at least not good enough, when we feel like we have been punished. If I had been so bad God took the mate, I must really need to be punished so I was doing it to myself.
I couldn't see it was not punishment to lose the best friend I had ever known. I sought for answers every where. I finally got a break. There was one other thing that kept me here, besides the love of my family. The mate had a friend who tried to help me. That friend brought me back to God.
I know my friends and family prayed for me. I couldn't talk to them. They all hurt in grief, too. I didn't want to hurt them more so I avoided talking to them as much as I could. This one friend made time for me even though it was not easy for him at that time in his life. He was grieving his father's death. I was so blind I never knew it. Still, he forgave that and let me call when I needed to talk. He started sharing books that sent me back to the right path.
One day he plain out told me, "Give it to God. Love God with it." I was speaking of my shameful hurt that I wasn't good enough to save my mate. I got off the phone with him and stood right there in tears and prayed. God changed it from a shameful memory to one I could live with in peace, almost as fast as I prayed it.
How could I regret having a love that lasted and was kept in faith? It only ended at the 'til death us do part" and I didn't see that as a limit anymore. I was going to live and so did the mate. I knew the truth of it. We don't die, we are changed. The grief in me was finally lifted. I got the first point of the repeating of the story.
I still have times I miss him. I have walked as a partner so long I don't think I will ever be all the way happy walking alone. But the pain of the loss doesn't drive me now. When I hurt I turn to God again. I talk to Him. He loves me and He shows it in many ways. He makes them small enough I can see them, even here. I have been comforted. I am never really alone.
Love here is always going to have a temporary parting in it. From going wrong or death or just because it fades away, we love and move on. It's part of loving here to have to let go. We can't love and express it between humans here as we can freely do as spirits.
I felt the pain and the truth of that with the loss of the mate. I found the joy again in my knowing that we really will be together again, totally loving, forever. I will be with everyone I ever loved with nothing but love between all of us. That thought is a joy.
I can choose to love on while I am here or I can stop loving because the one I loved is gone. Is that living? Can you live without sharing love? I believe you have to love to live. I believe life is love.
It's not just loving a partner, it's loving to dance or sing. It's loving your family, loving your friends, loving to create or mend or build or write. It's love being expressed when you love what you are doing. I think even loving the things you have and the place you are is expressing the One Love. Do it because you love to do it and you are creating more love.
You always take the chance down here that you will get hurt in loving another, unless your heart is protected by God. If you trust Him first, no one can hurt your heart. If you never try you might miss the joy that a love lived in faith and truth can be. I don't want to miss a chance to love again. I want to share love here again and show that love brings joy to life. I will, if I get the chance.
Why? Because living in love is the way this world is supposed to be. If you have the love of God then your days are lived in awareness of His love. The One Love spreads love to all we touch and the more we have the more we give. Then, one precious love at a time, they find their way back to the Creator.
Love God, Love your neighbor as yourself. Do no harm willingly to any. That's my goal, to live lovingly each day and remember to love. When I know that just the way you are and I am - we are loved, I can't help but want to share it. It comes out of me like breath.
How can you be sad if my body dies and I am once again released to be free of everything except the love I carry with me? I have the love of so many and I love them in return. I will catch up with them later or they will catch up with me. This is my truth - I will love all that I love forever. Eternity is ours. Knowing that is a gift to us from Jesus. He was the first to show us that we do not die, we live.
You will not die. You change. Each of you is just what you are supposed to be right this minute. If you turn your heart and thoughts to the One Love of the Creator He will guide your steps.
There is no other thing needed except to say, "I want to believe, show me how, please." He always will. He loves you so much more than my attempt here can tell you. Trust him to show you. Just ask it with the voice of your heart, not the mouth of your body. He will hear you. You have to choose to want to believe. He will not just teach you, but show you that Divine Love is real.
I will not swear to the identification or location of the place I went or the beings I met and saw. I will say I did not die, but I was dead. I was changed. I was alive in a way I can't really ever explain. I was somewhere that was a real someplace. You will have to know it yourself when you get there.
Death is a transformation, a changed state of being. Like ice becoming water or rain becoming snow, you are changed. The body remains here where it was built to be and the self of you becomes a being of another kind but still your very own self. I feel it is like shedding an out grown skin, coming out of a cocoon or hatching out of an egg. It's a new birth as a new type of being. You no longer belong here, you belong with others like you and they wait to greet you.
If the fear of death and dying can be removed from your hearts I will have done what I wish to do for you. If the pain of separation can be eased for you I have done well. I want each of you to know that the parting from your loved ones is truly is only a temporary parting.
You will be with them - welcomed and loved as you always have been - just down the road of your life a little further. If I can comfort you in some small way with my experience, even one of you, it will be worth the effort to do this.
I have come to believe that there is a healing love in this event that can be shared with those who read it. I would try to help you heal your pain as mine as been healed because I care that you hurt. I grieve that you suffer from thinking you have lost your loved one forever. It touches my heart each time I meet someone in pain from what we call death touching their life.
For me, "dead" is just a four letter word. It only describes what happens to your body. Death does not touch the self of you. You live on in a way that is different from life here. You will live.
Those gone ahead are alive and loving you still. Love the ones you are with now, while you can still take them by the hand. The love between you never ends even in what we call death. The love you shared will always bring you back to each other again.
I believe that communion I shared with the Divine Loving Being I met is how we will be with each one we love that is there. Totally understanding and loving each other in perfect peace, joy and contentment forever - that, for me will be Heaven.
I don't know what comes next. It's part of what keeps me here. My curiosity about life leads me to wait and see. I don't know how long I will walk here but I know he will keep me here as long as I am needed.
There was a time that it seemed to take too long. Now I know I have exactly enough time to do what ever it is I am here for. I can only trust Him to know how to make it plain to me. I still am slow to comprehend sometimes, He has to speak loudly to me.
I get up and go to work, come home to the shelter He has given me. I pray that I can help show others that His love is real in this world today.
That I learn to love like He does seems too big for me to do. That I learn to love the best I can is all I can strive for. I am not Him, I am as He made me. I try to be just what I am. What changes me is Him and His love. I have the self control of a two year old without His will to guide me. He has made changes in me that are visible to others.
I am less easily upset. I am quieter. I am at peace in my heart almost all the time now. I am rarely hurt by others words and actions. If I take them in prayer He shows me that it is not a hurt to me but a hurt they carry in them. I pray for their healing. It is a very interesting way to see what would have once sent me to my room, slamming the door and crying. I care more for others. I cry more easily but I seem to care more about what I see in the world and it hurts my heart to see all the grief and hurting that we deal with here.
I am selfish and self centered but I see it being changed, too. I don't swear much any more. I had a mouth like a sewer. He showed me words have power. I try to watch what ones I use but it really seems as if they just fell away from me.
I have lost weight without diet or exercise changes. I have had more resources to do for others. I have so much more than I need that I know it is meant to be shared. I share it easier. While I still have fears I have fewer all the time. Last time I was really afraid it was only of falling off a hill and breaking my leg. I don't fear others as often. I see they are His, too.
Some how, though I can't see it here, losing the man in my life was His loving best for His plan. I know it is a truth. I still don't understand it. If I had a vote all loved ones would go together to avoid the sorrow. That isn't how He sees it. I have to trust Him.
I read 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 and believe it says, "You will understand when you are a spirit." as we say, "You will understand when you grow up."
What I saw in these verses is - This is the way the Divine Love is as Paul experienced Him. The best we can do down here is to be filled by God's Love. Our love at its very best is but a dim copy of the Divine Love. All our best and deepest understandings will be eradicated by time and the limits of the flesh. They will be revealed as the imperfect understandings that they are when we join Him. I have said that things that seem so important to us here really are not important there at all.
The truth adults try pass on, that we would understand when we were older, is a part of this. It is a truth but you don't see it UNTIL you are older. As children don't understand some things because of their lack of experience and limited perspective, we can't understand things of the spirit as we are now.
When we join the Perfect Truth and Divine Love we will be in our perfect spirits, as he created us - like him. Then we will understand in the light of His Loving Truth, completely all the things that we just barely comprehend down here.
Having stood in the Loving Light of a Divine and Loving Being, I get a little bit of this. I can't explain it all to you, you will have to experience yourself. You can't understand what I am trying to say until you have seen and felt it, too. There just aren't any words that work to say it right. You will know it when you don't die.
I remembered we live. I call that the first point of this experience that was important in my life. I knew I had to learn something else from it. It was still being drawn from me. I pondered it and wrote it over many times. Some of the words would change but the main elements remained every time.
I killed myself. I died. I wasn't dead. I met a Divine Loving Being of golden light in a place that is not of this earth. It loved me and I loved it. We communicated. In his wisdom and love, I was sent back. I was helped when I would have just laid there and given up again because I could not walk. I went to work. I saw things. I dreamed at night in vivid detail for days. Many of these dreams have happened in my real life. The words change but what I try to say with them is the same.
After I died and was sent back I was given love again and gladly gave it. I was given my dear friends back and new friends that became dear. I was given back my children. I was closer to my family. I learned how great a treasure and power a true love is. I learned to love living again.
With the passing of the mate, even with this in my past, I lost something of myself. I wasn't getting it back. I wasn't talking to the one that could heal me. It was Him I was feeling betrayed by. The Creator had pulled a fast one on me, as I saw it, and I wasn't feeling understanding or forgiving. I was so sad and lost and hurt. I had been being good and something bad happened to me. Where was the love in that?
I looked for the answer. I did a lot of seeking. I was so very "not myself" with the grief and shock. The very dear friend that had been sharing books with me had loaned me one that gave me the inspiration and understanding of why I had to write this. I knew what I was supposed to do with this. It was truly a revelation.
That book reminded me that I am good. I wrote in an e-mail to my friend, "I am a good woman. I was a good little girl. I am a beautiful and perfect spirit and I KNEW the Divine One Loved me JUST the way I am.
But even being there, having experienced the love and joy, I could not see it was important to anyone but me. We were raised to believe "Nobody's perfect", to check with an authority, before claiming something as truth. I went back to living in the world and it's delusion that it is the be all and end all of life and it's social conventions are laws set in stone.
Now I remembered I was good. I loved and was loved. I cared for those that needed it. From a hurt bird to a sad friend, even in kindergarten. Then we were taught that only the very careful good ones that never do a bad thing get to go be with Jesus in heaven. The rest of us burn in hell.
I was not good enough. The cruelest phrase in the world. I was convinced before I was seven years old that I could not be good no matter how hard I tried. I wasn't good enough. I was not LOVABLE."
But I am loved. The Divine Being who loves me can NOT SEE anything less than the perfection of each thing that self looks at. That being has NO CONCEPT of bad, ugly, fat, thin, bony, color, size or language or smart or dumb or anything. It sees only the perfection of each of us. Of each leaf, each seed, each bacteria, each cat - each hair of our heads is perfect in that self's sight.
Precious in his sight. Perfect in his sight. Worth every second of that Divine Self's time for each of us until we are safely home again. The love sent to us is here every second of every day and He KNOWS we are perfect. He will tell us we are loved and good enough if we only will let Him.
How? The best way. By showing us. He can show you that you are precious and loved.
How did I miss hearing of His Grace and Love for us? He loves us all, He can make us whole again. Why was that not preached? There is no need to live a ruined life out, he can change it for you in His love and grace if you only ask.
I am a good being in the loving view of my creator and I had seen myself as good again. You are good. Not just "good enough", but the way we meant it when we said it as a child. "I'm a good girl." or "I'm a good boy."
What I believe was the second point to this experience is my ability to affirm a Loving Living Creator who has no negative in its being. It is so pure and loving that even the sun on fresh snow is gray and dim in comparison to it.
There is true forgiveness, a complete gift grace that can be ours. We need to fear no punishment. Only love comes from God.
The Creator is Love, it is true. It is not just words. But words are all I have to try and share it. Perfect, unconditional love is what that being gave me. There is no feeling or thought of anything we would call bad or evil in it. Love is what the Creator is composed of. It is the skin, the blood, the body of Him. Not God is loving - really "God is Love".
The Divine Being I met could do nothing that is not perfectly loving. I was there, I still didn't get it. Life kept putting me in places I had to share it over and over and I kept missing it. There is NOTHING negative in the Creator. Love is Life; Love is what powers life. Love is only good. "God is Good".
I knew I was not perfect in life as a human judges it - not even if you picked my mother as the judge - but the essence of my soul was always going to be alive, perfect and loving. I had just killed myself when I was given this knowing. It was the worst thing you could do, some people believe. It was not true there at all.
How was I made perfect? I believe this; In the view of the Divine Loving Being I could be nothing else. The gaze of the Truth powered by the love that is Him touches you. You are changed by it, your whole life is changed by Divine grace. Things we judge are terrible are changed by it to be good. In it's view there is no bad. There is no evil deed is beyond His power to change with His love.
No bad thought or feeling is left in you from your life when you stand before Him. He is Love. Love is Power. That power creates only good. There is no punishment, no guilt trip, no recriminations are made. He shines on you and shows you He loves you. Then He asks if you will love Him, too.
I did. How could I not? It was a love offered to me beyond understanding or explaining. I said yes to it. I was changed and showed to myself as a perfect, beautiful, loving being - like it was, only smaller.
All I had to do was turn toward the light. I had to chose. I choose to love.
I believe that what His Grace does is change your life, from day one to the end, to make everything in it work for good in His plan. It only has to be brought to Him once for it to be touched by His love.
He has already chosen us. He will see all of you the way you really are. I stood alone before that being. Others were near but we were totally apart from them. It was just me and that being. He didn't put it on the "Nine o'clock News". I gave it only to Him.
I was released from the things that were wrong in my life. They no longer existed as 'wrongs". They are made good by Him. That is the power of His love and divine grace. It is not forgiven. It is not forgotten. It is permanently changed.
He shows you your true self and you know you have been freed of even what you may think is well deserved punishment. You are made perfect by Him when you are created and He remakes you perfect again when you come to Him. That is what I believe. You don't have to die in the body to receive this gift, you only have to ask Him for it and He gives it. That is the Grace of the Divine Love.
I do not believe that one precious life here is to be wasted or unloved by that Being I met. I am not the only one seeing this. I feel a strong need to add my words of affirmation to the others out there that believe in the Power of Love with no negatives. I can do nothing and keep the story private or share it and confirm their belief in a Creator which is, in the final reality, only good.
The power of his touch on me has been leading me to share this. I know that what I believe does not all match all of the book many call their only truth. I can not let that stop me. I know that He leads me with His love today, here and now. He does it in ways that can not be explained away to my satisfaction. I choose to follow the guidance he gives the best that I am able. If I am wrong I know He will tell me so in a way I can't miss.
I have been showed that all the love we share with each other here is all part of the Divine Love, the power that created life. We show that Divine Love to each other as the human beings He made. We show it in our small way but it is all of His love he gives to us. It is all One Love being expressed by everyone that loves. One Love. One Creator. All of us are part of it and still ourselves. It is many loves and one love all at the same time.
I believe It is Love the Power that is life, that powers all of creation. I believe the Creator built us to love and care for each other. It does not separate us, it brings us all back together forever. They are not dead. You will not die.
I do not believe you will, "POOF!", UN-exist. You do not "become unaware", lie in the dirt until the last trump, exit stage left, kick the bucket or any other idea you may have for the body no longer functioning.
I believe there is no time and all time there. That everything is already happening in His time. It is every time and no time where He is.
We are the ones that measure it out by the rotation of the world we live on. He just uses it as he pleases. He is with you each minute of your journey here and He is with me. It's not the same time to him at all. Time is not his master, the Creator is beyond every limit we can imagine.
Grace is such a release from so much hurt you don't even know you carry, until it is lifted from you, that it is not to be feared. I believe that he controls all of life and works to keep the pattern true to the great vision he has of all of us loving together forever.
I can not believe suicide is a sin, only that it is a way some of us are allowed to change to the next life. I can't understand that but I have to believe it. I was loved, treasured, sought as a friend and cherished but I had just killed myself. To walk a path so dark that you seek death I wish on no one. I will not judge another's path home. I can only continue to try to walk mine.
I mentioned that I had read a book that lead me believe I had to write this down for others. I finished the book on a Monday. I told the story of that day of repeats to a new person at Bible Study that Tuesday. Telling people you died and spoke with a being of Divine Love, makes them look at you funny, but I told it anyway. I was trying to tell them why I thought I had to write it and get it out in the world.
Wednesday I realized I would have to write this. When I went back to the blog to review what I had written, it was exactly one year to the date from the I had to tell this story seven times to the day I knew I would write it for publishing. Then my telephone rang. It was the same man that started that day of repeats. He said, "Hello, you should have been expecting this call."
It would have been funny but I knew he was right. I should have been expecting to hear from him. It was another "coincidence". I had mentioned him specifically the night before as being the one that started that strange day for me.
He had called to tell me he told my story at the Bible Study on the West Coast the night before (as I had been telling it here) and it helped a person he cared about. I caught him up with where the year had brought me. When we were almost done he said, "When you publish your book before the end of the year I want an autographed copy."
I answered him, laughing, "There are a lot of assumptions in that sentence."
He replied, "I don't think so. I think it will happen.".
That feels a little spooky, too. I published it as an E-book on Amazon Kindle December 24th, 2007. He had his digitally autographed copy for Christmas.
I am writing this for the love I have for the Creator and the Divine Loving Being I met. I'm doing this for my friend in California I have never met. I am doing this for the man who brought me back to Jesus. I am writing this for the woman in Kentucky. I write for those who have lost their children.
I am doing this because I feel it is what The Creator asks of me. It's not mine, it's His, I just tell it. I pray it eases your heart as you read.
I want to share the love. It is what makes life right and fair again, seeing there is Love for each of us. Learn to see it in those who love you. It is all the One Love, it is there for each of us.
If there is something only you can do, and you would love to, then go for it. Do it now, don't wait. You don't know when or if you will get a chance again. Love, don't stop, love on.
********
What follows is how I felt when I reconnected to the Divine Love after losing the Mate.
I reached the place I could look to Him again on the teaching and prayers of a friend. I thank God for that caring man. May only God's will be done in his life for caring enough to help me, where ever he is now.
It seems to be different when you read it out loud. Try it and see if it's so.
The very first time someone did me wrong
I bound it around
In life that hurt would escape it's depths
Then one came to me, right to my heart.
He said, "There's nowhere for us to sit and talk here.
He walked the length and then the width of my heart,
I knew then that he loved me.
What a surprise! Too much pain!
Each one was showed me as I had carried it there
Betrayals, mine and done to me,
He showed it all to me.
My crying had slowed and in awe I stood,
He gestured to me to be seated there,
"Open your eyes"I heard from his sweet voice.
Now my tears fell freely across my face
He looked back at me with a smile and said,
Stunned, I cried, "What have I done,
His smile was so deep and his laughter so clear.
What could I say?
"See this?" He reached down
There were my girls and there was my boy!
"That's what you have done child,
I could not bear it. I cried at their beauty then begged,
I swear He laughed
"I almost forgot to show you this", He continued.
"Look in," he directed,
I cried out loud, "Oh no, I am not that!"
He asked, "Why not?".
He looked hurt, but leaned close to my ear
"I give it the body I chose
Your spirit I gave you is golden and strong
"It's how I protect
It's very sad to hide beauty so
I see how kind his gift to me
Would you like to meet my friend?
I did not understand why.
I put it in my heart and it hurt.
That hurt could make me cry.
So I made a pirate chest and put that hurt in there
with the hate I was told I shouldn't feel
and the anger at them I couldn't show.
with chains and locks and forgot it,
I thought.
I buried it deeply under the roots
of a large blasted tree in a swamp.
Black and crooked it stood.
To mark the spot
an X of red on the ground showed me
that first hurt would always be.
and sting me in my heart.
If I was depressed or life was hard
I'd start with that one
then go through them all.
I'd sit under the black tree by the stinking swamp,
dig up each one and hurt myself
with all that I'd ever done wrong
or thought another had done to me.
I said, "Why are you here?"
He said, "A friend asked me to come."
I looked around with new eyes.
I was ashamed of the ugly tree
and the dark muck of the swamp.
May I make us one?"
He looked at me with so much sweet care.
I bowed from my hurts in front of him
then whispered,
"Please,
if you would like to sit and talk with me,
make it as you want.
I wish it wasn't such a mess
but this is all I have got."
and stopped in the center under the tree.
He was standing right on
that very first x.
He smiled and said, "This might hurt,
but I promise, for only a moment or two.
Then it will always be beautiful.
May I do as I wish here?
It's up to you. What do you want?"
I saw what I'd built of my heart.
I thought, "Anything is better
than this dank smelly place."
I lifted my head and looked into his eyes,
I answered,
"I want what you want for me, please."
The tears filled my eyes,
from angers and shames,
hurts and griefs - the deep sobs began.
The touch of him burned deep and clean
in each mucky place he walked over
through the tears I saw the changes.
and then he changed it and made it pure.
The swamp became a singing stream
with grassy banks where cat tails grew.
The trunks he dug up, then blasted the chains,
opened the tops and out it came-
hate given by others, hates given by me
Unfairness, Shame, Lies and Theft,
all my Broken hearts from the loves in my life.
All the hearts broken by me.
He dragged out so He could see them
in the light.
I felt each pain
but as he looked at it in the light with His love
it changed or was gone
- as he decreed was right for me
in my life.
He took all of it.
Every hurtful time, each shame filled deed.
He took them all into the flame of his love.
Then he began to give them back to me
as they were now.
They were changed by His love for me.
In His hands, the gifts he gave
of wisdom and understanding,
were flowers for me, not shames now.
Lilies - yellow, red, and white,
were growing now along the stream
instead of pain.
stooped with the exaustion from the work he had done.
He said, "Just one more time, I need you to be
right here with me
in front of this tree. Come."
I joined him there by the beautiful brook
under the blasted tree
and then the ground shook.
His hand reached out to steady me.
His flaming love took that tree inside and gave back a stump.
It was a beautiful stump of glowing wood
where soft green moss growed along the roots
We could both fit to sit and visit,
there was even a back to it to lean on
while we watched the brook.
beside him in the center of my heart.
He put his arms around me, pulled me close,
told me, "Close your eyes", so I did.
There was a glow of light, a breeze touched me
with the scent of the flowers.
I opened them slowly.
In front of my eyes there was growing
a dancing, happy, willow sapling
just tall enough to shade the stump
on the grassy bank by the singing brook
filled with cat tails and lined with flowers.
as I looked around at the beautiful place
He had made for me
of the nasty mess my heart had become
from the life I'd lead.
I was silenced and numbed by his gift to me.
I just looked at him.
"This is my favorite part.
My favorite part of loving you all is this -
I love designing hearts.
It is different for each one,
no two the same.
You are always so glad
to see I came.
Thank you for letting me do this, it's fun."
ever, for you,
that you would give such a gift to me?
What will I ever be able,
as small as I am,
to do for you,
my wonderful friend?"
Then he answered,
"Share this with me. May I just stay here?
I have always loved you and I always will.
The joy for me is to be with you, my dear."
If he wanted to stay, of course I wanted Him to!
I never want Him to leave, ever.
No one had done for me what He had.
No one ever loved me like that.
I wanted to know him better.
to pulled up the most beautiful box,
so small it had gone unseen.
He opened it up and out flew my joy
and my songs and my dreams.
My loves were all safe and
like birds with bright wings
they sat in the willow
chirping and singing.<>
"You always kept them here, safely under the roots.
The most precious treasure,
your loves and your truths -
but you kept them protected
from the swamp and the tree.
I knew they were here - and you kept them for me."
where ever you walked,
was love those I brought you,
what ever the result."
He showed me the beauty of loving in truth.
Please, that's for you.
It's too much love for me to keep safe,
out of it's chest, and all over the place.
I can't do it. I'll hurt them!
So I hid them where
they'd never be touched
by the dark dank swamp or the stinking muck."
"I know I might hurt them,
with my ways or my words,
and I would never hurt anyone
ever again.
I can't bear the shame
that I might be unkind or cruel even,
Protect them from me.
Please,
You keep them."
right in my face
then reached for my hand
and pulled me to my feet.
"I wouldn't forget
how you treasured my friends
and the gifts I gave you
and you can't begin
to know the love inside you.
You've always kept it apart in your box
and now I want it here,
alive in your heart."
He lead me over to the stream.
He reached out a hand,
the singing stilled.
The creek became a shining pool.
I want you to view
the truth of the love
I see in you, friend."
So I knelt beside the shining pool
in the grass and lilies
and saw the vision
of who He says I am.
Again he laughed, but I went on,
"She's strong and clean,
alive and fresh,
tawny and golden, with not a flaw.
Look at her smile, look at her hair!
What a woman she is,
but that's not me.
I wish it was
but I see
I am not that at all."
I answered in gasps, between the tears,
"My teeth are bad, I'm short and fat,
like a troll.
And my feet, oh, they are a mess,
and my skin is scarred
and my face is ugly
with no eyebrows or lashes
and my eyes are tiny.
I have a neck like a frog.
My hair! It's dry and crisp and hard,
not shiny, like hers!
I smell of smoke from cigarettes
and sometimes of drink and sweat.
I am not that! I wish I could be."
and he said to me,
to walk in the world.
But when we sit and talk here in your heart
hold this thought dear -
The truth of you sits with me.
This woman is you -
the other is not.
and reflects my light
to all where you walk.
The truth of you and your loving heart
is a beauty kept
beyond worldly eyes
or earthly hurts"
those I hold most dear
from the corseness of
the blind ones there
I hide them in bodies
that humans can see - but not marr.
The beauty of your spirit
can only be seen
with the truth of love.
That's how it is done.
But the truth of my love
will always show, to each of you,
the beauty that is
the truth of them I am within.
I have dressed each spirit
with my light and my love.
I give you my sight
to search each one
for the love and the truth inside
for that is where beauty forever abides.
It is of the spirit, not the outside."
of protection and love
and His wiser ways to guide my steps
So now we sit
by the singing stream
on the mossy stump
and the birds all sing
while the clean breeze of his love
wanders constantly through,
washing over all I see.
I take to him now, my fears and my needs,
my friends and my hurts
and he turns them for me
into beautiful things
or he takes them to him
and then they never hurt me again.
And this is promised forever
by Him.
I've asked Him to come to you.
Just answer yes when you hear Him call.
He really loves designing hearts,
Let Him give a new one to you.
Just Me
A friend told me that once she caught a woman from her church swearing at a faulty tool. The woman quickly excused herself but my friend interrupted saying, "No, it just shows me you are human. I see the way you love and didn't think I could do it. Now I know you struggle to walk in what you see is the right way, I might even be able to try it."
Her point was that she needed to know those she was learning from were like her; not perfect saints in life, but struggling humans trying to live right. That way she could see there was hope for her. She knew she was not perfect and could not be.
I don't want anyone to think this happened to me because I was so perfect and wonderful that I got something special when I died. That would be untrue.
I put some parts of my past here so you will see I am just like any other human here. I screw things up royally on my own.
I ran away at fifteen and was gone for four months before returning home. I learned about and liked sex. I learned about and liked drugs.
I met the first man I knew I would marry at an anti-drug event at my school. I met him again when I was sixteen at a drug counseling place I was going to volunteer at. He was sitting, stoned, on the front steps.
We were married when I was seventeen and three days old. I was five months pregnant on my wedding day. I had two children with him
We broke up many times. The last time I met some one else. I had a child with that man. We were together two years. He didn't marry me. While he was drunk one night he rolled the car. He went back to jail. I used every dime I had to bail him out. He jumped bond. I lost it all and he left us without even a good bye.
Alone with three kids and no car, I tried to be a good Mom. I wasn't. I was coming apart.
I was in a custody fight with the first husband. After this last mess I was going to lose in court. I couldn't keep just one child. I made the decision to split up my children before the court could decide their lives. It hurt me deeply, but sometimes none of your available choices are good ones.
The two oldest went to their father and his wife. I adopted out the littlest one to her aunt and uncle. I was a wreak in mind and heart but I had done the best I could for them.
I left and went out of state. I got drunk and stayed that way for weeks. Maybe months. I couldn't stand to visit my kids because I couldn't bear the partings. We missed each other badly.
Three years later I met and married another man. He neglected to mention some things we should have discussed before marrying. When I learned of them I got out. That one lasted eighteen months.
I have lied, cheated and stolen from stores and worse in my life. I went to jail once for four hours. There is more, I skip it.
That is where I was when I couldn't live with myself anymore. I had made it through Christmas alone but the new year was close. I was shamed, defeated and alone.
I had let my children go, failed in every relationship I had, and I could only see instant replays coming. Another year of failing? I just couldn't face it. That is when I killed myself.
This is who I was when He told me I was perfect and precious. It is why I say He loves all of us as we are. If he loved me so completely as I am and with my past, I can not name one he will not love. I am not only no angel, I was barely sufficient as a human female.
Being only what I am - I fail to understand so much - sometimes I wonder how even He could find something about me to love. But I know he does. I walk and love and live with God guiding me now.
I continue to believe you can only go when your time has come. I stay willingly to prove to my children that I believe love never dies and neither do we.
I wait to see what comes next for me and how He will bless me. I want to see what comes next. His blessing have been many and magical. I love most of His surprises! The rest I try to puzzle out with Him teaching me how to see the love in it.
I can't know all the answers. I don't know why children lose their mother or some gets raped or murdered. I don't understand war at all. We only have one planet, I think we need to find a way to share it out carefully and take care of it.
I still believe our lives, each one, are precious to Him and He will bring us safely home. I will be there waiting for the ones I love as the ones that love me are waiting for me.
I love it here but I don't fear death. We don't die, we are just transformed, changed to a different way of life and living. I died and was sent back. I am still here to answer what I can of questions you may ask. Some of you will find that easier than trying to ask Him. I will do what I can to answer you. The truth is, so will He.
Don't ever think that He is not still loving and alive. He designed us for eternity. There is no "death" only a change in how you live your life. The you that loves and remembers and lives now will always be alive. The ones gone on ahead still live and still love you. This is what I believe.
You can keep your four letter word, "dead". I know there really is eternal life and that we are loved.
God loves you as you are, however you may be, right now, today.
Post Script
I experienced this return from death. It is my testimony that there is a Loving, Divine, Eternal Presence who is only good. That intelligent, self aware being cares deeply and lovingly for each living thing. if you have comments or questions.
I wrote this for Him. He made it pretty plain I was supposed to share it.
You are loved. You will not die. We will be in eternity with those we have loved here. Your loved ones will know you, no matter what your shape. It is the love that you have between you that draws you together - down here and over there.
I believe there is life beyond what we think we know as life. I believe there is another world to explore in another type of body.
I believe I'll see you all there!
May only God's will be done in your life, I ask it in Jesus' name, Amen
You can Email Me
More thoughts I have written are at
Dead is Just a Four Letter Word
For those with a Kindle Reader you can down load this as a Kindle Ebook from here. If you have read this and would like to publish a review on Amazon about it please click here. Under the title of the book it offers a link to reviews or to be the first to review this.
I am including this link because I believe it's important to share this story. Anything that might encourage another person to read it who may find comfort in it is good. Thank you for understanding.
Dead is Just a Four Letter Word
By D. S. Weiler
Published on Kindle Books 12/24/07 This copy printed 3/1/08 by the author.
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