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The god of death bows his head before those who chant and listen to the names of God. —Kripalu Maharaj
Don’t ever say die/Never, never, never say die —Black Sabbath (“Never Say Die”)
Dead in the street.
Mangled, bloody, shattered, and . . .
DEAD.
Life can go from light to dark in an instant.
***
“Sorry, I can’t,” my love-of-life girlfriend tells me when I call and ask her to take a walk with me in the park. “I got too much to do before I clock in at work.”
“It’s cool, just thought I’d ask. Too nice a day to waste.”
“Well, I know you’ll enjoy the walk on your own. It is a nice day.”
“Can’t,” I add. “I confess: I don’t have shoes to walk in and part of my reason for inviting you to join me was so that you’d bring over my shoes and some shorts.”
“Ahh . . . the truth is revealed!” she says with a giggle that makes me miss her even more.
“I’ll skip the walk and scoot over to the clinic for my overdue physical. It’s better than sitting here counting ceiling tiles to pass the time.”
A harmony of “Okays” and “I love yous” and our conversation ends.
I’m blessed: The private counseling practice I started from nothing now had grown to the point where I could afford a sweet corner office in a building overlooking a park in a peaceful, suburban, LA neighborhood. I’m booked pretty much back-to-back every day, all day, serving a middle-class community as a specialist in crisis, addiction, and behavioral disorders. I advocate strictly cognitive strategies as I wage a quiet, backend war against the over-prescribing medical empire.
Blessed: Mid-forties; fit; a single father who is close with his son, a recent high school graduate; and a partner with whom I have a magically romantic connection. We’d just celebrated our tenth anniversary with a trip to India and Nepal. In nine days, we would celebrate my forty-eighth birthday, probably with a simple meal out or a sexy evening in—or both.
I live an unconventional life: My partner and I live a block apart, having chosen to reject the blended family option to avoid subjecting my only son and her son and daughter to the dysfunction of blending a family during the critical teen years. Her name is said as Jeanette, but spelled uniquely: Janete. We will both be empty nesters in a few years. My counseling career had begun eight years ago after I awoke one day and found I could no longer stomach my job in commercial contracting. So I did a one-eighty, risked it all, and started saving people from dysfunction as a private counselor.
Life can go from light to dark in an instant. . .
***
I expect a client or two to reschedule here and there, but never once have I had three clients rescheduled on the same day. All three appointments were back-to-back, and my clients all texted me to say they couldn’t make their appointment within the span of ten minutes. Suddenly, I realized I had over four hours to kill. I had no backup work with me since I was booked solid all day, and I’d ridden my motorbike to work, so I had no change of shoes for a hike up the hill in the lovely park my corner office overlooked.
If only one or two clients rescheduled, I would have remained in my office for the day.
Most days, I drive my car to the office. Once or twice a week, I ride my MP3 motorbike, an unusual, 500cc scooter from Italy.
To avoid wrinkling my office clothes, I change into track pants and a t-shirt and don my riding gear over them to ride up the boulevard to the local clinic for an overdue physical. I’m healthy as a bull, but the research I was doing for my next book had some risks, so I thought it best to check the stats.
I exit my parking garage on my motorcycle and turn right instead of my usual left. In the several years I’ve worked in that office I had never exited by turning right instead of left. The right turn leads to a road with traffic and stoplights, while the left turn leads to a quiet side street into town. To this day I do not and never will know why I turned right instead of left on that particular day, but I did.
Two blocks away, I pause at a stoplight to turn left. I am alone in the left-turn lane, no one is behind or in front of me. A green arrow lights up, giving me exclusive right of way to turn. I ease out to turn, and an oncoming driver in a full-size SUV barrels through the red light and hits me in the face, killing me instantly.
Killed.
Dead in the street.
Mangled, bloody, shattered, and . . .
DEAD.
Life had gone from light to dark in an instant. . .
On the SE corner, there was a man on his cell phone. He was waiting outside a tire shop for his daughter’s car to be completed. He had rearranged his plans for the day to help her at the last minute.
He ran to the accident scene as onlookers shouted at him, “Leave him alone! Don’t touch him! Help is on the way!”
Pastor Tom ignored their pleas. He felt certain God had put him in that place at that time for a reason. He crouched to the ground, put his hands under the accident victim’s arms, and dragged him from the undercarriage of the vehicle.
The body was bleeding from his head, nose, mouth, and eyes. His cycle helmet strap was stretched across his throat, causing deep red grooves.
Pastor Tom undid the strap and released the helmet.
It was too late.
The body was not breathing. There was no heartbeat. Pastor Tom began to administer the last rites to the man’s soul. “Go forth from this world in the name of God the almighty Father, who created you . . .”
Fifty yards away (45 meters), two paramedics are in front of a fast-food drive-thru, waiting on their burgers. The two emergency medical responders see the accident occur and are on the scene in moments, bringing my body back to life.
· If they had wanted tacos instead of burgers that day . . . I would not be here.
· If they had been in the back of that drive-thru line . . . I would not be here.
They bring my body back to life, but my condition is critical. I am now in a stage 3 coma, defined as “deep coma or death.” Stage 3 is the lowest scale of living, virtually synonymous with death. I am rushed to the ICU.
· Had the accident happened near my home, just three miles away, I would’ve been too far to make it to the ICU in time, and I would not be here.
At the moment of the accident, my son’s close friend was passing through that particular intersection, even though . . .
· He lives nowhere near there.
· He is rarely in that area.
· He had a rare errand at the DMV at that exact time at that exact corner.
He phoned my son. “Brandon, your dad’s been in an accident. They’re pushing him into an ambulance.”
“How do you know it’s my dad?”
“His bike. No one has a bike like that. It’s him.”
This is how my family was alerted to the emergency.
· Paramedics had no way to alert anyone or identify me. My phone and ID had been lost in the crash.
My loved ones converged at the hospital and were met by two doctors and a priest.
They are told it is unlikely I will ever wake up, and that if I do, my brain trauma is so severe that I will probably be bedridden for life and need care for as long as I continue to breathe.
· My girlfriend fainted and collapsed.
They were told that my face had been so damaged that, even with extensive plastic surgery, I will remain scarred and misshapen.
I awoke nine days later.
On my birthday.
· I did not know who I was.
· I did not know how to talk.
· I did not know how to walk.
I did not know what a hospital was, what a motorcycle accident was, or even what life and death were. I did not know who the young man sitting at my bedside was: my twenty-year-old-son.
I did not know who the worrying woman in my room was: my girlfriend of eleven years.
In the next chapter, Resurrection, I am in a Stage 3 Glasgow coma and remain fully aware Withn the Porrtal dimension. I begin a dialogue with Akashic Agents (angels) that reveal to me mysteries of life, death, rebirth and the heavenly abodes.
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