I was 16 years old and was in an accident with a school bus. After the car I was riding in landed, I felt myself outside of the car looking in. I noticed people running toward the accident. I have clear memory of a man trying to save the boy beside me. I began rising above the scene, still watching, but I was beginning to notice that something wasn't right.

As I floated above the scene, I floated by a traffic signal that literally wasn't installed until the following week. Shortly after that I began feeling warmth radiating from the left and above me. I looked to see what the heat on my shoulder was and realized that I had no shoulder. My attention was drawn to the left and higher up where I noticed the most beautiful bright white light that I had ever seen. I was drawn to it and began heading toward it.

Suddenly my attention was directed downward when I realized how effortless it was and that I didn't have real eyes. A past life review followed where I saw and understood everything that had ever happened in my life. I witnessed things that I had done, things others had done to me, and places I've been, but I held no "judgment" about any of it. I just observed. Then I felt heat on my "no shoulder" and turned my attention back upward and to the left. I continued to rise and the heat became warmer. I felt so much love and electricity all around me. I swam in it, as if in water, twirling and feeling the complete bliss that the heat and love offered me. Then five shadows began to form in the distance and come toward me, but they stopped. They were familiar to me, but I did not recognize them. When they stopped, I began receiving "thought talk". They were discussing whether I could go with them or not. Eventually I "heard" that it "wasn't my time". I begged and pleaded in my own thought talk for them to take me with them, but they wouldn't. One shadow lingered behind and sent me a message that there was more for me to do.

I woke up after two weeks in a coma and that experience was all I could think about. I didn't have the ability to speak for over a week and it seemed that I spent most of my awake time somewhere between the light and in the hospital room. When I could finally speak, I began telling my family about my experience. They did not understand and told me to tell my doctor. My doctor and my family dismissed my experience and told me not to mention it again, because I sounded crazy and I didn't want people to think I was crazy so I quit talking about it. For months it never left my mind and then I started noticing that I knew things that I could not have possibly known. Examples such as when and how people would die, spirits spoke to me in my dreams telling me about things that were going on in my life, I could read peoples thoughts, knew who was coming to the house or calling. I saw spirits standing around or behind people. I knew who I would see when I was out in town, etc.

This became too much for me to handle, so I turned to alcohol and drugs to get away from the knowingness I had and to squelch the dreams that were full of prophecy. Eventually, I became an alcoholic and stayed altered in some respect for many years. I have been sober for two years and have shared my NDE story with an auditorium of people who, 30 years later, were much more receptive and did not think me crazy. Souls that have passed come to me often, especially loved ones, sometimes within hours of their physical death. Sometimes it’s days, but most always they come. I can call them to me during meditation mostly whenever I want, but I try to respect them and not do that too often. I have become aware of the guides in my life and have become extremely spiritual, not religious.

My life is others focused today which I believe to be my purpose---to help others heal, which I do through my natural gifts and training in massage and Reiki. I have a lot more to say, but I'll stop at that. When I accepted my NDE experience, my life changed and continues to get better every day. And in no way do I have any fear related to death. Death would be time for my soul/spirit to see what it has learned in this lifetime to prepare me for another incarnation. I feel totally blessed by the power that is greater than any of us.