Got my feet up on the coffee table. Computer on the lap. Dog by my side. One of ’em anyway. One dog. One side.

I left the camera in the studio, no new photos tonight. I could walk on down and fetch it but then I’d get eaten by a bear. Which means you still wouldn’t get any photos. On top of that I’d be blogging from the other side and I’m not so sure I’d care much about blogging over there.

Eternity has it’s privileges, after all. And blogging…that’s soooo early 21st century.

I worked with a woman once who’d had a near death experience. She died from a pulmonary embolism. Not nearly as dramatic as a bear attack but an interesting story none the less. She went through the whole enchilada of witnessing the scene from above her hospital bed. Floating off…the white light. She was able to tell the doctors things that were said after she was supposedly dead. Things she saw. But she came back. I can’t remember why. Maybe for her kids. They were young and hadn’t turned on her yet.

This photo was taken the summer I took the kids to Norway. We spent six weeks running around the woods, clambering over rocky hillsides. Not so much as a skinned knee. A couple days after coming home I took a tumble with the help of a large dog crashing into me at warp speed. My legs went up, head went down. On concrete. Of course I didn’t know any of that. I was just a formless being with other formless beings and I was pissed off. I wanted KIDS. I mean, LOOK at them. Look how CUTE they were. How could I be a mom WITHOUT A BODY??? And then the formless beings said some sort of celestial version of okay, okay, go back to your kids. And JUST LIKE THAT…poof… I re-entered my body. Only it wasn’t a poof, it was more of a crazy spinning round and round the third eye spot until whoosh I was back in my body. 

And in an ambulance enroute to the hospital. But I didn’t know any of that. All I knew was I was in pain. Excruciating pain. But that was GOOD. Because pain meant I had a body. It meant I was alive. And I welcomed it.

Meanwhile, Zach-the-dog-who-knocked-me-down, knew he was in BIG trouble and decided what the hell, in for a penny in for a pound…so he ate his girl’s American Girl Doll. Not a cheap Barbie knock off from the dollar store. Oh no, the EXPENSIVE doll. Taking him from bad dog to B.A.D. dog. And while he was doing that, sweet little DaughterDear began whining for ice cream because Mommy promised her some before she fell down. This did not set well with FirstBorn who had been so traumatized from the sight of his most beloved mother being loaded in an ambulance that he had to set her straight. He had to make her feel bad. As bad as he felt. Because that’s what brothers do.

So he told her no ice cream… because Mommy was DEAD.

Her answer… “So? Daddy will get us a NEW Mommy.”

It’s hard to traumatize a four year old, especially one with her sights set on ice cream. She had her priorities. And Mommy’s accident screwed up her trip to Baskin & Robbins. Dead Mommy. Dead goldfish–what’s the difference?

Oh yeah, she cried for the goldfish…

So I don’t really know what happened or where I was during my great adventure to what I call the void. But I’m reading a book right now about a woman who had a remarkable near death experience followed by a miraculous TOTAL healing of stage 4 cancer. Dying to be Me. Anita Moorjani was admitted to the ICU on the brink of death. She was in a coma, her organs were shutting down. She was dying. And she was in that other place, where everything was bliss. She made the choice to come back because she realized “heaven is a state, not a place.” Within weeks of returning to her body she was CANCER FREE. Completely healed. It’s a fascinating book. I’m not going to try to condense her experience in a few sentences here. If it’s something you’re interested in click on the link above and read the reviews.

And she wanted ice cream when she came back.