"It's not your time, you have to go back!"
This happened in the summer of 1976 when I was only twenty-two
years old. Still young enough to think myself invincible! I was living with a woman eight years older than myself
in Roswell, Ga. I was on my way home after work, riding my 10 speed bike as always, because
work was so close to where I lived, and there was really no reason to use my jeep.
I had to cross Roswell Rd. - "Hwy. 19" , four lanes of traffic that
go up into the mountains of N. Georgia and eventually all the way to Maine! I looked both
ways and started across. It wasn't until the last second that I saw this Monte Carlo out of the corner of my left eye. The lady driving the car apparently didn't see Me either until that last
second. No time for her to slow down. No time for either of us to react to what was about to happen. She
struck me nearly head-on at about sixty-five miles an hour I was later told. I flew over her hood and struck
my head on her windshield and the roof of her car, my body tumbling over and over in the air like a toy and finally landing
on my feet behind her car, as she was screeching her brakes to stop behind me now and far down the road. I walked over
to my crushed bike, picked it up, and walked it to the side of the road laying it on the sidewalk. Then sitting myself
down next to it trying to compose myself to what had just happened. In the instant that it happened – it seemed
more like minutes to me as I relived flying over the car and landing on my feet. Thinking I was So Lucky to have not
been killed, or even gravely injured. Looking down the road I saw the lady nearly hysterical. Crying and pulling on
her hair. Even from that far away I could see tears washing down her young face.
Just then I saw a police car hurtling down the road towards me and the officer inside jumping out when
it came to a stop near me, lights flashing and siren still howling. "Are you all right young man?" "Yes officer,"
I said taking stock of my condition again. The concern on his face seemed so unwarranted to me. I thought to myself,
yes I'm fine but wondered why I was sweating so much. I put my hand up to the left side of my head to wipe away the
sweat. When I looked at my hand it was covered with blood, Not sweat. Then looking down the left side of my white
shirt realizing I was absolutely soaked in blood all down my side and onto my pants. "Please tell that lady that I am all
right, I know my name, I know wha.........."
It was in that instant the whole world began to turn yellow fading
to black faster and faster. The officer's face was the last thing I saw as I fell back onto the sidewalk laying there
as the sun seemed to go into some strange eclipse taking its light from my world. Blacker and blacker. The deepest
darkness I had ever seen in my life.
It was just then when I realized I was looking down on my body
and the officer struggling over me. My first thought after that was of my Loving mother and my girlfriend. "Oh
God, this is going to Kill my mother," I thought.
Then I was in another world. A Totally New place I had
never seen or ever conceived of. But wait....it wasn't a world at all! No ground beneath my feet, then realizing that
I didn't have feet! I was in a cloud, but not an earthly wet or cold cloud. I suddenly thought..."This is such
a wonderful warm place!" No pain, no emotional pain, no regret, no guilt, no shame - all that had been washed
away from me as I left it all behind in the world of lesser things.
Then at once I saw a figure moving towards me through the cloud.
It was my Grandmother who had passed away nearly twenty years earlier, looking twenty years younger than she did when I last
saw her on earth, smiling so happily, moving closer and closer to me extending her arms. Then Wes, my childhood friend
for decades who had been killed in very nearly the same way as me, only he he’d been on a motorcycle. He came
towards me with a wide grin giving me our old thumbs-up! He too was younger than when he died. Then in a flash
they were both gone! It was finally sinking in that I was indeed dead and away from all earthly things. Floating
as a hawk riding the thermals in joy and play.
Then a presence of someone else that was with me then, though
I saw no face, no body, no spectral light. There was a comfort coming upon me now and Joy Far beyond Anything I
had ever come close to on earth.
"It's not your time....You Have to go back" - He spoke
to me without words in a language only a soul could hear.
"I don't want to go back!" I spoke. "I Know it will hurt!"
I was finally free from All things of earth that I never even knew hurt me.
"It's not your time, You Have to go back," he repeated
then...softer and even more reassuring now. Then I felt a push on my back. But it wasn't like a hand at all.
More like a giant marshmallow pushing my entire back, suddenly tumbling again through darkness back towards my body and earth.
A coldness came upon me as I came back into my body that had laid dead for several minutes. A long gasp of air
and I was suddenly sitting bolt upright on the sidewalk again light coming back to my soul and life. The blanket the
officer had covered me with falling down as I sat up.
The officer was looking down the road at the woman in the car
but seeing me sitting up in the corner of his eyes, perhaps hearing me gasp also. He turned his head towards me slowly
in Total disbelief. All color left his face as his eyes met mine, his mouth agape in absolute wonder.
"Officer?" I started. "Please tell that lady that
I'm all right. I know my name, I know what happened, and I'm not going to die. It wasn't her fault," repeating
the very same words I had started to speak to him, in what now seemed to me to have been long ago when I left the world. The
paramedics sitting and standing at the back of an ambulance rushing towards me now, shock on their faces too. They loaded
me onto a gurney and into the ambulance in no time. I was on a new journey now....only This time to the Northside
Hospital . Chirping away like a magpie through an oxygen mask. So Happy to be in the world again and to have experienced
ALL of what had happened!
Each and every second of your life is a Wonderful, magical gift from
God, my friends. ALWAYS remember That! And use your time to help others along Their paths! For This will
bring you Happiness and purpose you may have never felt before!
