While almost 40 years have passed since my first NDE, it's as clear to me now as if it just happened. I was 15 years old at the time, my freshman year in high school, 1984. My mother, a frequent nighttime blackout alcoholic and battered wife, had finally found the courage to leave my father, a domineering bipolar manic depressive, prone to extreme violence.  She would later go on to blame me as the catalyst for the divorce because I couldn't take our family's life of violent insanity any longer. 

You have all seen stories about people who have "near-death” experiences. I dislike the term near-death because to me and many other people who have gone to the “other side,” the experience is more accurately termed a "death” experience. I have had more than one "near-death” experience in my lifetime.

One is etched on my memory permanently. In terms of a “near” death experience versus a “death” experience, I remember very distinctly the feeling of having my soul leave my body. If that is not the act of dying, I do not know what is. My drowning experience happened the day of my grandfather’s funeral, on August 2nd, 1961. One might say that was not a very auspicious day to create an emergency scenario.

July 26th, 2019 dawned with the promise of a perfect summer day. The sun hung high in the sky, casting its brilliant rays over the coastline, as if nature itself conspired to create a memorable experience. That day, I decided to head to the beach with two of my dearest friends, Sarah and Michael. The anticipation had been building for weeks, and we couldn't wait to revel in the simple joys of sand, surf, and sun.

I died when I was a boy of 8, when I fell and hit my head on an end table next to my bed. I saw a being in a burgundy robe and then I fell asleep, but I never forgot him.