by D. S. Weiler
***************
Dedication
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 have been 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 will love you forever and I will see you when we get there! D. S. Weiler
***************
Contents
Dedication
1- Stop the Pain
2 - I Quit
3 - Death?
4 - Life?
5 - Arrival
6 - The Meeting
7 - Communion
8 - The Showing
9 - The Viewing
10 - The Parting
11 - Return
12 - Going On
13 - Us Do Part
14 - Repeat After Me
15 - Starting Over
16 - I Learned
17 - Now What?
18 - I Change
19 - Changes
20 - Just Me
21 - The River
22 -Quoted by Jeffrey Long, M.D.
Make the Pain Stop
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 and 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 of 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 Quit
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 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 difference 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 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.
Then I died.
***************
Death?
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". I felt my life functions stop from the inside out. 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, perhaps, the most important point of this story.
I did not "die". You will not die.
My body was dead. "I" was still alive. This I knew then, and know it now, as truth.
***************
Life?
Suddenly 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. I was even more aware of the totally peaceful 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 define what was happening to me. "I", an aware self, was still "me" and, 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, not with a physical brain. I was moving without legs. At least, I couldn't see any part of myself. 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 concepts, too. How can I know anything? I'm dead!
I floated "higher" or further. I lack a better word for the sensation or the direction. Still, I knew movement was happening to me. There are no words that describe it well. I moved toward some other place from where ever I was now.
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. Dead means dead; No power, no lights on, party's over, no thinking. no feeling. I was dead but I was not un-alive, not unaware. I knew I lived. I 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 find out that, when all I wanted was to die, that I was not dead left the me confused and wondering.
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 my family. Then something changed in me. That sad thought faded away and I was overcome by a deeply peaceful joy. It was like I let all the cares and concerns that are so much a part of us leave with my body. 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 OK. Everything would be covered.
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, The pain of everything that ever hurt me was erased. 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 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. 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.
***************
Arrival
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 curtain. Shaded, but enhanced by the darkness to a brighter brightness.
I turned to face it but I had no face. I had no body I could turn. But what I did what felt like turning to face it. Instead of feeling 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.
The curtain effect was gone. The light was crisp and bright now. I felt I had arrived. Whatever this place was it was where I was supposed to be.
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. 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, unclustered. 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.
I felt 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.
***************
The Meeting
I wasn't by the barrier any more. I could not see it anywhere. All I could see was the huge, brilliant light. All I could feel was love, rolling over me as sunlight warms on my skin through a windy day. I felt examined by it.
I was right in front of and dead center (sorry, pun accidental) of the largest glowing globe of light I had seen. I focused all my attention on it. 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 being.
We were the same! We were both living beings. This felt like a huge revelation; "Hey, it's another soul!" 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 like a human. It just felt like a human to me.
I was aware of its "self-ness". It was aware of my "aliveness". It was strange to look at something I thought of as so different from me and find out it was not different. I couldn't say it was "human" and had been living on "earth", but it was another living, aware self. We were alike!
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 other self 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 and I felt the lack of my control over my self as less powerful.
The essence of it, the "self" or, rather, "selfless-ness" of it is so much harder to tell. I felt the power the Being appeared to generate and that was sent out from it. It was like standing in the sunlight but, instead of sunshine, LOVE warmed you through to your center. 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 was experiencing. Pure Love came from that being.
Love the Power, created and sent out by that being, was a force.The being of light was composed of matter that is "Love". It's was like electricity unconfined. I could feel Love radiating off that Being and flowing into and through everything around it. I try to tell you about it and there is no experience here that captures the essence of what I felt. It created love, it emitted love, it directed love. It lived on love. It was made of 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" because love is the essence of it's existance. Love is the power in it's being alive, it's body, it's awareness; It's all composed of Love.
It was much larger and more powerful than I was. I felt no fear. I only felt more curious. I wanted to know and understand what was happening to me but I was not afraid of this powerful "other self". There was only a complete acceptance of the "rightness" of the moment.
This is like you would gather information meeting a new person for the first time. The sentence, "We stood looking at each other" is fitting 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 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 have tried.
***************
Communion
I knew it was what held me where I was and what had moved me closer to it. 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 and 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 had been a diamond I was flawless, perfectly cut and beautiful beyond needing any other change. I could not be more loved by it if I changed even one thing in myself. I was perfect - as I was made. I feel it may have thought, "as I made you. I did you perfectly!"
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 am. I didn't have to be anything but my real self. Truth lies there. Unconditional love sees only the beauty of the truth in each living spirit.
We began to communicate when I understood it was "speaking" to me. I "heard" it address 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 understood and responded, somehow. So did it. I reveled in that complete, pure, communication. There was no possibility of lies, 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 very 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. I was giving it joy by just being. 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 to it 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 the perfect communion.
***************
The Showing
Then there was a pause in our "talk". I had been viewing that other self as a large, golden centered, white haloed ball of light in front of me. There was a change in my perspective. What I was seeing changed. I saw a long, rounded oval of light with a pattern of tiny blocks in rows seeming to moving all along it's length, like the lights in a neon sign appear to move. A glowing golden light came off it, like a sun. The love you could feel was like the Divine Loving Being sent out. This one appeared smaller. I asked that being what it was that was so pretty and so loving. It answered me. "That is you."
I was seeing myself out of it's own vision. 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. I loved being me for the first time I could remember.
I was perfect just as I was. There was nothing I could do that would make me better. I was so loving and beautiful through 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 saw the truth of what I was. I was filled with the 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 we are alike, we are both living, we are both of Love and you are beautiful and made of love, as am I.
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 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 from the woman I was then.
That is the meaning of the grace. You are loved as you are - not as you wish to be, not as you should have been, not as someone else says you have to be - but for exactly what you are. The truth of what you are is only good. There is no shame or guilt because you understand what life here and the love in you experienced is just that - being alive as a human. There is no way to feel ashamed for you are exactly what you were created to be. Your life and you are showed to so you understand you did everything from love. There is nothing to regret or be sorry for any more when you see that we are all moved by love and trying to express it or move by the percieved lack of love and trying to share it.
I was at peace with myself. Nothing hurt me anymore. I could only see my life through that Being's Love. There was no negative toward me from that Being for anything I had done, including killing myself. It was showed by the power of the Truth of Love with which it was seen to be a reaching for love. Reaching for love is natural. That Loving Grace, total acceptance, complete love and truth created a joy in me as I saw it was in me, too, not just from the Being shining down on me, Love was in me as part of myself. I am made of love and peace. I felt the joy in that truth.
As I saw myself from the eyes of that being, I knew I was good. I was goodness. I was not just, "okay". I was perfect and I was loving and I was good. I saw, in my own judgement, that I was love, loving - good. 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.
l have no right words for the complete acceptance of myself by myself as one worthy of love and giving of love. I am using letters to create words that will share with you the depths of this being's love as I felt it. These symbols are too small. They stand for something far more vivid than I can express with them. When I say, "There was nothing negative in all of that being, or in my self or in anything or other one around me" , the ideas behind the words still do not convey the purity and truth of which that being is composed. The truth is inextricably bound in the love that composes the life force of that being and our true selves.
I could share an act, like hitting a friend, but in the light of that loving truth, there was no feeling of guilt, only a knowing that I had hit a friend. It was not "bad", it was not "cruel", it was an act in a transaction between another and myself. The friend was not condemed for inciting me to hit him. I was not condemed for responding by causing pain.
The negtive words don't work there because (IMHO) those feelings can't exist there. All of everything I ever experienced was composed of and showed to me as love being sought or shared. I could think is "There is only Love. It is only good." I could not think, "There is no "bad". Always expressing your thoughts and feelings in the most loving way is how we are built to function. Always being joy filled and happy is natural to our soul. By not loving and caring for one another, we twist ourselves all up. We seem to transpose the love into hurt between each other here. It's not natural.
***************
The Seeing
There was another feeling of change. I felt like I was moved closer to that being. Then I was looking back at it again, shining on me. I have tried to tell people how it appeared to me but words are inadequate. Still I attempt it for you here.
Imagine a large, round, globe shaped zinnia. It was deep golden in the center and composed completely of many tiny flames. Starting at the center a small circle of golden petal shapes 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. It was like each petal stayed the same size but each row of petals multiplied as needed to increase the ring in size to cover that surface area of the globe.
As the rows of petals or flames reached the visible edge of the "body" of that Being, the color had intensified until it was radiating a glowing white aura around itself. Yet the center never stopped putting out new circles of flaming petal shapes. The whole being never moved yet it's apparent surface was constantly in motion. The petals were not expelled from it, like waste, but becoming, being created, moving to where I could no longer see them over the top of it. The constant creation and movement was the power of the love that is the life of that Being expressed. Creation is love manifesting. The glow I saw around it was felt as a radiation of love on everything. That is the closest I can get to explaining its physical appearing self. I believe each living thing, each life, is a manifestation of the Power that is Love.
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 and travel to the outside of it. 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. 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, with no limits.
With a new friend we listen to them tell us about their life. We get to know each other more and 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 had showed me it knew me. Now it let me know it. This was how it "showed" or told me of itself. Now it is just a memory of little moving flames, then it was events and actions. There was more than just seeing to this sharing. There was a learning of that loving being that I know was real. I knew it like I knew my best friend.
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 that unconditional love that is mine to give. 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, so unsalvageable 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 worth loving but that I was wanted to love it WITH it. That I was desired in such a way by one so loving was more than I could understand.
That being already KNEW me before I arrived there. It chose to love me and wanted me to love it, KNOWING it. I wasn't asked to love blindly. I was showed the self that wanted me to love it by my own choice. 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 wanted my love. It desired my love.
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 something you can't love. It made itself vulnerable to me. I could choose to withhold my love. But how could I not love a being that trusted me with all of it's true self? I sent my love to that being in rays of golden light.
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. Perfect understanding in complete Love; It was, and could only be, a Divine Love.
***************
The Parting
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 can't really explain what I mean. Something like it happened once when I visited Tennessee. It felt like I was home, instead of on vacation. 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. I loved at the Being of Divine Love and it loved back at me. Then came the blow I didn't know was coming. It 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 my power to refuse. It was in that being's power to send me. It was only done of love. That being had the power to let me stay or send me back to my life here. It could only do what it felt was the most loving thing to do for me. To hurt me would be to hurt itself. 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.
I had been comforted and shown a Divine Loving Being and part of the place we go when our bodies die. 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.
There was no sensation of motion. There was no concept like "good bye". I felt a severing of our direct connection. It's hard to describe. We were joined together 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, and then I was coughing and gagging and back in my body.
Unlike the perceived time it took me to go to that place and the darkness I felt I moved through to get there I saw none of that this time. It was just - Poof! - I was back in my body. It felt that quick.
I wasn't dead anymore.
***************
Alive Again
I woke gagging and crying and gasping for breath. It was hard to breathe, like my lungs wouldn't expand. Tears ran down my face to my chest. I started sobbing, in deep grief again. I still couldn't figure out exactly what was happening. I wasn't dead any more. I opened my eyes. I looked up to see a friend standing there, smiling down 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 and put his arm around me to hold me up. My legs would not support me. He got me to the bathroom where I collapsed next to the seat, grabbing 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, I would have slumped to the floor. Just seconds later the vomiting started. He pulled my hair back and held it. I threw up some more. Violent spasms shook my body. My throat and stomach hurt from the pressure and the acid.
I finally choked to a stop, breathing hard, 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. I crawled up from the floor using the sink for support and managed to get to my feet. I leaned heavily against the sink for support, one hand on it, too. My friend stood watching me, staying near enough to help.
I began the ritual of brushing my hair, washing my hands and face with a cool rag and I felt a little less run over by a truck. I was cold. I could feel my skin was cold and clammy. I was still very shaky. When I turned to go back to the couch I started to fall as I let go of the sink. My friend caught me and helped me back to the couch. 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. 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 who wouldn't scare me in the shape of my friend. I know I wasn't afraid even though I knew the man I thought it was could not be there. That friend was in Florida.
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. Or I was dead two days and only slept one night. Either way, 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 to here, 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 and can only hope you can feel how true this is for me.
At work that day, the most vivid thing I wrote down later, was watching a black and white plush cat give birth to four black and white kittens under the machine stored across from me. I could hear her cries, herr 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 just couldn't see or touch her if I got close to her.
I wrote it all down. I could read it over when I doubted myself and what had happened to me. 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 riden 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 summer 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 so.
***************
Going On
When I got back on my feet, physically, and saved up some money, I left Nebraska and went to Florida. I stayed there with my friend that couldn't have been there 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 and called it 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 bought for myself. Dad always got them for me, before. It was a little CB 360 Honda. It had been a long time since I had ridden. I had to practice quite a while to get road ready again. I passed my test and got my cycle endorsement. I was legal.
One day my old BF 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, oh YA! You have probably guessed the rest, but 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. We pulled in to 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. As the beginner, when we went to leave, they had me go first. They could keep an eye on me going up the pot holed road and the hill. That was when 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 de jevu was so strong I felt kind of "lost between". 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, but this is a lot to swallow in one bite.
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, where 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. I showed him that entry again that night. 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, John to my Yoko, he would say. I went through my days safely following him. Then it ended.
***************
Us Do Part
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 stop to 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 to fill the humidifier after watering the dogs.
He fell so hard he broke the hinges out of the bottom of the door. The door was jammed between his neck and shoulder on the main artery, I thought. I had to decide if his neck was broken before I could move him out to do CPR.
I made the decision, moved him out and started CPR, 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 knew. I was doing strong chest compressions when, with two small death rattles, he left me. He went on, ahead of me again. 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.
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 him, with a timer, 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 and still a cup apiece to share 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.
My mate was gone. I was lost. But he left me a pot of coffee. I never could use that carafe again without thinking of him filling it for me. I had to get rid of it later. It was too much of his love for me to see every day and move into the future without him.
It was a blow to my life that no one who knew us thought I would get past. Everyone 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, my happiness and my contentment.
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.
***************
Repeat After Me
At work one day 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 so 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 believed 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 was 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 and 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 for the first time. 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 as fully as I had experienced 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 told him this story to try to comfort him.
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 death. 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, as I was upset. It was a kindness to me. 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 am a woman alone in a rural area with a high crime rate and just lost my mate.
She shared that she and her mate were true lovers. She is still here and still single after 12 years alone and knew all my pain as a widow. She told me to be comforted and shared 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 and I am getting a little freaked out. Puzzled isn't the right word for it, mystified is closer. What was going on?
When I walked into 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 near the back door 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 learned 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 is that I am not getting. I shared this story with them. 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 out, 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 again. I tried to see 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.
***************
Starting Over
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. But 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 my spirit 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 next to my heart under my left breast beneath my ribs. 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 weeks. 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. No one could see a way to help and I could not find help in myself. 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. One who couldn't even comfort her children.
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. We feel like we have been punished. If I had been so bad God took the mate, I must really need to be punished. 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; A friend prayed 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 that 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 and I was so blind I never saw 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 in shouts of anger and pain. God changed it from a shameful memory to one I could live with in peace, almost as fast as I prayed it out. He showed me another way to see the same event. I could see I had done all I could and it was not my fault the mate died.
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 know the truth of it. We don't die, we are changed. The black shame and grief in me was finally lifted. There was still grief and lonliness, but is was less intense. I began to heal.
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, to my Divine Loving Being. 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.
I know this is such a very short tale. I have stories of what has been going on in my life as I have been guided, but this is the meat of it. I want it out here for you. 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, 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 Learned
With the repeating of this experience continuing to occur, I knew I had to learn something from it. I pondered it and wrote it over many times. Some of the words and such would change but the main elements remained the same.
I was sent back. I was given love again and gladly gave it, even after years of being hurt in love. 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, I lost something of myself. I wasn't getting it back. 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. 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 to me.
That book reminded me that I am good.
What a tiny thought to launch a year of writing. I wrote in an email 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. I'm Good! "
What I believe is important in this story is my ability to affirm a Loving, Living Creator who has no negative in its being, only truth, love and grace; Only love.
The Creator is Love. It is not just words. Perfect, unconditional love is what that being gave me. Love is what the Creator is composed of. It is the skin, the blood, the body of Him. Not "God is loving", but "God is Love". We are created by Love and made of Love. We are Love, too.
I am good. I care for those that need it. Even in kindergarten, I cared and tried to help. I knew that about me at one time. But others told me I was not good enough; The cruelest phrase in the world. Those I looked to for love and protection corrected and complained and 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 "LOVEABLE." Now I had seen myself as good again, after reading that book.
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." The very material of our life force is love and love is good. You are good.
I was there, He showed me and 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 Creation. Love is not just what creates life, Love is Life; Love is what powers life. Love is only good. "God is Good". You are good. I am good.
What a concept! 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 me is 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 in the belief of some people here. It was not true there at all. That is how I understand 'Grace'.
How can I be perfect? I can be nothing else. I was released from the things that were wrong in my life. But the truth is that I knew them as "right". That is the power of His love and divine grace. Events are not forgiven and not forgotten. Neither of those is needed. It is showed to you so you understand that it is all love expressing itself between all that live and that it was needed for good. He shows you your true self and you see you are also good.
I am not this body. These hands move to the brain's impluses but the "me" that is writing this to you, the "ME" that is using these symbols to represent events, is only loving and good. You are made perfect by Him when you are created and are perfect still when you return. That is what I believe. You don't have to die in the body to receive this gift of understanding, you only have to ask and He can give you a knowledge of your own goodness and value as yourself.
I do not believe that one precious life here will 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 Creation in which it's all good.
I know that what I believe does not all match all of the books many call their only truth. I know that Love leads me 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 one with that Divine Love, the power that created life. We show that Divine Love to each other as human beings when we give loving attention to each other. It is all His love. It is all One Love being expressed by every life being lived. 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.Time is not his master, the Creator is beyond every limit we can imagine.
Only your body becomes dead. It 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 Love guides 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.
***************
Now What?
I told the story of that day of repeats to a new person at Bible Study one 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 share this and get it out in the world.
Wednesday I realized I would have to write this book. When I went back to the blog that night, 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 first day of repeats a year ago. 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 along with all the rest of the coincidences. 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 would have 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. His statement was a truth. I published this on Amazon Kindle December 24th, 2007, as an E-book.
I wrote 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 writing this for you, I pray it eases your heart as you read.
The book is as good as I can get it. It's done. Now what will I do?
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.
I feared it would be soon. I was aware, in a way that kept me living every day as my last, that my time was reaching an end. A few months after I shared that fear with a friend, I had another heart attack. But I survived again. That fear has left me. Then there was a time that it seemed to take too long for it to be my turn to go. I just wanted to be "home" with my mate. But others here need the love I am for them, as small and poorly expressed as it sometimes seems to me. Now I know I have exactly enough time to do what ever it is I am here to do.
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 just 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. 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 because I loved well and deeply once. I want to share love here again and show that it is always love that brings joy to life. Loving doesn't hurt. Losing one you loved with hurts. No love hurts. Sharing love is a joy. I will love again, if I get the chance.
Why? Because living lovingly is the way this world is supposed to be. If you have love, then your days are lived in an awareness of love. The One Love spreads love to all we touch. The more love we have, the more we can give. Then, one precious love at a time, the world is a more loving and caring place.
That is the point, Love God, Love yourself, Love your neighbor. Do no harm willingly to any. That's my goal, to live lovingly each day and remember to love myself, too. Just the way you are and I am - we are loved. You can't help but want to share it. It comes out of you like your 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. We do not die.
You will not die. You will be changed. 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 just your mouth, and he will hear you. You only have to choose to want to believe and He will teach it to you.
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 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.
Some how, though I can't see it here, losing the man in my life was His loving best. I know it is a truth. I still don't understand. If I had a vote it would not have happened. All loved ones would go together to avoid the sorrow. That isn't how He sees it. I have to trust Him. I know I would not have written this if the mate were here. There was no need. But it has changed lives. I know that one thing I did in this life has counted in another's life. That's amazing to me.
I had 1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 read to me all at once. I believe it says, "You will understand when you don't die", like we say, "You will understand when you grow up." I think Paul experienced the Divine Love. He saw that all our best efforts 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 don't die but move on to where the place of Divine Love.
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 as we are now.
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 Change
Some of the changes in my life were the effects of my experience becoming real to me again. I pray that others see His love is real in this world today. I am not Him, I am as He made me and I try to be just what I am. 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 can pray for their healing. It is a very interesting way to see people. I care more for others. I cry more easily but I seem to care more and it hurts my heart to see all the grief and hurting that we deal with here.
I still feel I am selfish and self centered but I see that being changed, too. I had a mouth like a sewer. I don't swear hardly at all any more. He showed me words have power. 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. Sometimes 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.
There are other changes. The changes that come to each one who loses a loved one, be it daily partner, family member or friend, affects each of us differently. Each love we lose affects us in a different way.
I have experienced the "deaths" of pets, all my grand parents, brother, father, aunts and great grands and friends. Each brought a different set of changes to my life. Losing the mate changed my entire way of living. It changed the path of my "every day" from a known and loved routine to a strange and painful groping for existance.
It was like being a flaming pin ball, bouncing off everything and everyone I could reach, and burning them with the intensity of my needs. I needed comfort and I didn't know what would help, so I tried everything; Going places, staying home, being with people, being alone, working, taking time off, music, books, meetings, groups, parties, bonfires. These at least filled the time, but nothing could touch my pain and soothe it.
I sat in the back yard one day and was changed. I was venting in a prayer with a song. It was a hurt, lonely, angry song. Then something touched me. Something came over me. Something freed me. A feeling like someone was there and they loved me went right through me. I began to cry. I went to my knees from the bench and grabbed the grass to hang on to the planet.
My mate was gone. My mate was not coming back. I had no one to love and no one to love me in my days anymore. It was real.
It was my life now. That's how it is. My new reality was I'm alone.
I sobbed for a long time with this knowing. It was truth, however unwelcomed. I grieved for the shadow I lived in now, with no love. I grieved for the days I would never have again that I enjoyed so much. I could grieve and let it go.
The feeling of the love that infused me stayed through all of this. It was like I had been living with red membranes over my eyes for more than a year. The world was pink. It was right there in front of me and I swear it's all pink. Those other colors people tell me are there are all in their head. That day the membranes were removed and the colors came back into the world. Even the black.
I returned to reality from more than a year of having my emotional and mental system shut down by my body's self preservation system. The body didn't want to die and it knew, if I experienced all the changes of losing my partner, I was going to follow him. It shut things down to a level of input I could deal with. I lived.
Some people describe this as feeling like a zombie. They are here, doing what needs to be done, but they don't feel anymore. It's the body's defense against grief and other emotions too strong for it to deal with, I believe.
I was back again. I was going to live. And I hated being back. I hated feeling the fullness of the grieving in my heart. It hurt so deeply into the truth of me that I could see no way to go on. Then the love that was holding me started to soothe my hurt. I got up. I knew that those I loved and that loved me had kept me here. I was showed that one had reached out a hand to me when I was blinded by my grief. I knew again that I was loved and would love on.
I had almost finished the third rewrite of this book when this happened to me. It was just a few days after the prayer that changed my memory. I sat down the next day and, all in one sitting, wrote a piece I call "Changes". I have given it a page of it's own because it's so long. I ask that you read it because it is what came next in my life. It opens in a new page. Then you can finish reading here. Thank 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 said, "No, it just shows me you are human. I see the way you walk 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 list my past, in part, here up to the point just before I killed myself.
- I was the oldest in a family of five children. I was a fairly classic "good girl" until I was about fourteen.
- 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 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.
- I was married when I was seventeen and three days old.
- I was five months pregnant on my wedding day.
- I had two children with my first husband.
- I worked to put him through college.
- 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.
- The second man didn't marry me.
- While he was drunk he rolled my 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 but 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. I split up my children.
- I gave two up to him and adopted out the littlest one to her aunt and uncle.
- 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 parting. We missed each other badly.
- I married again. He neglected to mention some things I should have known before I do's.
- When he told me I got out. That one lasted eighteen months.
The list is seriously edited but that should be enough to convince you I am nothing special as human go. I have lied, cheated and stolen from stores and worse in my life. I was told I was perfect. I was showed He saw me that way.
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 as bad as I judged it to be, I can not name one he will not love. I am not only no angel, I was barely sufficient as a human female. I love well, but not always wisely.
I continue to believe you can only go when your time has come. I walk here still 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 the love in it.
I can't know all the answers. I don't know why children lose their mother or some get 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.
The book says Jesus took death from us, I believe that is true. If you don't believe in Him or the book, maybe you will believe me. 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.
He brought us back to eternity and removed death from life. Don't ever think that He is not still loving and alive. 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.
***************
The River Walk
(The strange, unexpected, magical and wild coincidences continue to show up in my days. I am including this event because I feel it is more than just important to me.
Others experience this guiding voice and I want them to know there is another human here who doesn't think they are lying or in need of medication.
I could not have done this without training or divine intervention. I had witnesses and I wrote this to share in an email the day it happened. It was real to me.)
"STOP here!"
I heard it in the middle of a curve. Not just any curve but the second of two tight curves, along side a river, with a train track over it, blocking the view of on coming traffic. And two, count em', two, no parking signs. "Ya, RIGHT!" I thought and I went past it.
"Go Back"!
I heard it three times, each louder than the last. I made a left and turned around, went though the curves and turned around again so I was going back where I needed to be to pull over. Why? Because it seemed to be a real voice in my real head and I believed it had a reason to be so loud and vehement. Someone was communicating with me. I have communicated with the impossible before. So I went back.
To NOT park I left the keys in the car and it running. I walked back toward the river and start looking for what I am supposed to see. First there is a dam near, a sound of comfort and a place of meaning to me. I feel myself relax. I see it has a place to sit on it. I see the blue sky, the clouds are all behind me.
Then there is the river. It's down a tall bank from where I am. At the base is a bare place from people fishing. A small stream feeds in on the north over the gravel bank. Someone has put small block steps in but they are icy and snow covered.
I ask why I am here. I know "to go down to the river" is the answer. I explain about dress up shoes and ice and down hill and dresses and still get, "I will not let you fall, go down to the river."
I move about half way down and slip a little. I see a nice stump with a few leaves hiding it. I lift the leaves to move the snow off and sit there. I try to get comfortable and easy in spirit but I can't. The stump is too short, I am too tall, I'm cocked at the back. I look at the ice on the steps and at the spot by the river. I get up and start the rest of the way down.
I get to the nice spot and look around again. The sun is shining and I hear "The sun is to remind you of me. When you see clouds, the sun is still there. I am always here. " I hear a breeze in the leaves and then it fluttered through my hair and over my skin. I hear, "The wind is to remind you of me. You can not see me but I am always here."
I feel the Love touching me. I get it. I leak tears of joy that I understand and I just wrote about the river of love awhile ago so I know the river is the love. I hear, "Take off your shoes and step in the river."
Now anyone from the north knows there isn't much colder than a snow fed stream or river and where the two met I was to stand. I mentioned pnumonia, flu, only March, age, you name it I pointed it out and I just keep hearing, "I am here, step in the river".
I took off my shoes but left my socks on. I took a breath, looked up and walked into the river. It was ankle deep right there. The water ran over my feet from the stream and over my toes from the river. I looked at my feet. I knew they were in the water, I could SEE that, I could FEEL that but it felt like I had my feet in the creek at the shallow spot in high summer.
I looked at my feet some more and said, "Thank you, that feels really goodl" It was only cool and refreshing. My feet were not blue, I was not shivering and my teeth were not chattering. Wow.
I stood there until a truck pulled into the place I was parked in front of - right by their no parking sign. I would have to move the car. I walked out of the river, put on my shoes and went easily up the hill to the car.
He washed my feet. To remind me I am loved so much that in the winter he would warm the water or maintain the warmth of my feet for me. He takes care of my every need. I am loved. He is real. I love the Creator.
For my reaction to that wow. You had to be there. "I have washed your feet to show you the love I have for you. I am always here."
Why I needed to personally experience something like this when I already had stood before him in my past and knew he was real I didn't understand then.
But I was dead the first time I met him. I was alive when I walked in a Michigan river in March, with the snow melt running over my feet. It was real in both ways of existing. The Divine Love is real.
I got back in my car, seeing whole world around me as alive and vividly lit from within by the love that is the Creator in each bit of it. I drove around randomly for more than an hour before the thoughts and feelings passed and I was again by myself. It was a joyful drive and the world around me was beautiful and mine to enjoy.
Later I stopped by a friend's and was telling him about it. He looked properly doubtful and I said, "See?" Then I walked over and stood in his snow bank. My feet went right to soggy ground. I stood there, walked out and showed him my feet, not the slightest change. Warm and pink, not blue, no shivers, nothing to show I was standing on ice barefoot.
It lasted long enough to visit with them, go home and put foot prints in the front yard just for the fun of it! I wrote an email to a friend about it.
What a blessed day. The "strange" gets more usual around me all the time. I had a friend tell someone once, "You should do what she suggests. Weird things happen when she's around." And what he meant was that since he met me he had found his link to the Divine Love again and it was manifesting in his life.
Things "just happen", just exactly the right money, down to the penny, to pay a bill or fix tires; a guitar for comfort is needed, found and then the money comes out of the blue; turn around to go to a store you don't need anything from and meet a friend in the parking lot that needed you; decide to visit a friend you haven't see in awhile and have them save your life...the list is longer.
I know you have experienced coincidence in your life. We all do. But what if the meaning of the word needs to be changed? Divine intervention may be the truth of coincidence. I know, for me, it seems closer to the truth. I like Serene Dippity, too. (I made it up. Going right along, all "normal", and then it just hit a mystical dip.) But dip, dunk or coincidence, something seems to have a track it keeps as all on or a target it keeps us all headed for. It's real in my life.
I shared this here to show you that a spiritual change is not a one time event. You don't just become some kind of perfect human in one sitting. Realizing there is more to life than what we experience here and now, knowing you don't die, all these things and life itself continue to develop your heart and soul.
We keep changing and growing here and as long as we live....There is time for much growth in Eternity. This life is just a small part of the total experience we will live. Live and Love require growth.
Whatever your life is right now, if you can just wait, it is going to change. One phone call, one letter, one book, one word, one friend can change the way you live and see your life. Don't hide from the pain, give up the hurt and love on anyway.
Deep in each of us is one who wants only to help and love and be loved and helped in return. One who helps others because it makes their heart smile to do a kindness for another. You are good. Be what you are.
If this touched your heart then the next time a need is seen by you, fill it, if you can. By seeing those needs and filling them with our loving care, the love is shared. That is all I want to do, 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, then go for it. Do it now, don't wait. You don't know when or if you will get a chance again. Love on.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for visiting the site. May your day be blessed with whatever you need most. D. S. Weiler
You may email me with comments and questions or go to the Forum and post them there. I answer them all, as time permits.
***************
