Life Lessons From Beyond

It was nearly ten years ago. I can still see my broken, mangled body lying on the cold, wet cement, blood oozing from the multiple wounds, a body in such pain that its spirit—my spirit—escaped its mortal habitation, hovered above the carnage and the twisted steel at the very precipice of what would become a journey that would shatter everything I believed—everything mankind thinks it knows—and create a seismic paradigm shift challenging what is real and what is imaginary. But that wasn’t the worst day of my life. Two years previously, my wife, Marilyn—my only true love—was struck and killed by a drunk driver. We were planning a happy and prosperous future together. Now, she’s gone and I was fighting for my life. That’s the easy part of my story. Sharing all of what happened is just not possible. I want to. I tried once. I dare not ever again. Yet, that is precisely what I’m about to be asked to do. “Paul. Paul!” My assistant Debbie called, interrupting my reverie. “Yes Debbie. Sorry, what is it?” I asked bringing myself back to the present. “Paul, the reporter has arrived. Shall I show her in?” “Sure.” Prior to my near-death experience, no one would have wanted to interview me except maybe to report on the homeless. Living in vacant buildings, homeless shelters, and under bridges, life was not what I had dreamed. But that is what my life had become. Now, this reporter wants me to tell her how all of this happened. How does a person go from hopeless, homeless, and in the depths of despair to joyful, happy, and wealthy beyond what one ever dreams? At that lowest point of my life, I had no education, no special talent, and no resources. Will she believe me? Will she think I’m as loony as the birds whose sounds pierce the night air here in Montana? Had it not happened to me, I wouldn’t believe it. It would be so much easier to explain that I had hit the Powerball Ticket for $30 million.