Tehachapi's Artist Community - grungehobbit.com

My friend,

My heart is with you on the loss of your Father.
It is never easy to realize that someone, who has always been there, is no longer there. It is the circle if life, but still the pain is one we never hope to feel.

At times like these I share my story.
I am a student of the function of religions, beliefs, practices, and cultures. 
I am not agnostic, nor atheist, nor do I deny any person their chosen beliefs.
My belief is, that any form of activity which focuses one's energies on the 
furtherance of good, is an activity worthy of one's physical and spiritual efforts.
But there is one event through with which I have come to know the world.

On August 6th, 1975, I died in a horrendous car crash.

The details of how I came to be at the wheel of an automobile at age 15 years, 5 months, are a whole other story. So, I don't include them when I share this.
In the years since that day, I have found words to describe the events, though at the time separating the totality of the experience into 'random verbs' came very hard for me.

I remember everything. From the moment I knew the crash was a foregone conclusion, my mind went into slow motion. And split second by split second I 'recorded' the entire accident. The cars hit so hard that my seatbelt snapped, launching me through both the steering wheel and dash board, as well as through the windshield.
Face-first I struck the other vehicle's trunk lid and was bounced backward into 
the car I had just left, slicing back through the sheet metal of the window frame like a hot knife through butter. And then I stopped. Back in the driver's seat. All of this seemed to occur to me over minutes of time. 

Then, in slow motion tiny bits of auto glass continued to shower down and float through the air for what seemed like an eternity. I decided to leave the vehicle. I gripped the remnants of the dash (careful to place my hands on either side of the 'V'-shaped split I had made on the way out of the windshield) and pulled myself forward with incredible lightness. Easily I was able to propel myself out through the window frame, onto the trunk of the other vehicle, and then turn to face my vehicle.

With no feelings of shock, fear, nor surprise of any kind - there I sat.

Right in the driver's seat where I had left myself. I saw my friend in the passenger's seat writhing in pain from his trapped legs. I saw the front of my obliterated car, and the finest pieces of glass still trickling down.

I pushed myself off of the trunk, lighter than air, and up above the scene.
I saw people opening their front doors and coming out. I saw kids on bikes 
stop and stare. I saw the incredible damage done by the impact.

Just then, I was aware that I had but to think to communicate. To every question, there came an answer. Every thought was 'anticipated' by a response, seemingly before I had thought the thought. I felt (and I love this phrase) "plugged in".

I became aware of the 'presence' of others hovering there with me. Lots of others. Before I could 'ask' (naturally) I was 'told' that, though 'they' were very sorry, I was ’not ready yet to go', and so I had to return to my body.
I remember pausing there for a moment to consider the communication, and I remember feeling an indescribable mix of sorrow, joy, anger, confusion, and longing. But, the decision had been made, and that was that. As I  descended  down back toward the crash, I turned, as if to glimpse what I would be missing.
And there was the whole of the secret of 'us' laid before me. Magnificent!

As I glided upon the same 'track' back towards my own body, I recall seeing a 
one-legged man in his 20's-30's approaching the vehicle I was in as fast as 
his use of one crutch would carry him. He seemed to approach the crash with 
purpose, not as the bystanders slowing gathering. Somehow I knew that 'this 
was gonna hurt'. As I turned around and slipped back into my body exactly 
as I had left it (still careful to place my hands on either side of the jagged metal 'V'-shaped split I had made on the way out of the windshield) the man I had seen came to my window. He gripped the window ledge to steady himself and placed the crutch against the side of the car. He touched my neck and wrist (his hands seemed very cold to me, which made it seem odd to be 'feeling' again) and then turned me to him and struck me mid-chest (hard!) with the bottom of his fist.

Holy shit - I was back. And it HURT!!. And the sounds came back. And the screams came back, the sirens came back, the lights came back, and I was back -- in Hell.

My recovery, and that of my passenger's, is also a tale for a different day.

What I 'got' on that day is was the whole of the secret of 'us'.

We are not 'physical beings' at all. Oh yes, while we're 'here' we are subjected 
to this shell of a physical body, but we are not of this. We are energy. 
Each of us is a tiny bit of energy, some brighter, some dimmer, but all made 
seemingly of the same stuff. When we, here, refer to "God", we speak of us,
the collected us, from the plane whence we came and will return to.

Typically, as human forms, we've 'got it wrong'. Heaven and Hell are not 
places we 'go to', they are places we simply 'are'. When we are 'here', as 
physical beings, we ARE in Hell. No kidding, this is as bad as it gets. 
When we shed our physical prisons we get to become 'ourselves' again.
No pain, no cold, no hunger, no struggle, no doubt, no longings.
If one must label it - we go home, to "Heaven". Our real home.

When we are 'here', we get to use but 10% of ourselves. That's it.
I am not saying that the system is foolproof, but the best you can 
hope for while in Hell is to be an 11%-er... maybe a 12.
Also typical for the 10% crowd, we've got something else backwards.
When we "die" we are born again into ourselves - we get our 90% back.

We become the beings of energy we truly are, and get our 100% souls back.

When we die, whatever happened here can only be as important as the 
10% of us that experienced it. Not a lot of 'here' matters in the face of getting 
one's 90% back. Being 'dead', feeling my 100% momentarily, was the best 
thing that ever happened to me. Though I'm still 'bugged' about that "not ready" crap. (Just kidding)

So, my love, when we grieve for souls close to us, those we have braved Hell with, and those whom we have recognized from our past crossings, we are really grieving for ourselves. We grieve for our temporary loss of connectivity to those whom have gone home before us. And, for the time until we 'see' them again. We should not grieve for their shedding of this physical plane, any more than we would grieve for a friend who just won a paid-for world tour.
Because they have become their 100% again.

And therefore, typical also for we confused Hell-tenants, we should never 
think of death as a sad occasion. It is a birth - to be celebrated! 
We should sing, we should dance, and we would - were we not grieving for ourselves. 

All this will be revealed to us anew at the time of our next crossing.
And we will think of ourselves as having been silly for our sadness.
Because, it doesn't get any better than 100%.

You will 'see' him again.

With Love, Your Friend

P.S. As I know you will ask me, "So how did the whole thing end?" I'll tell you here.
When a Paramedic approached the car, he said to me, “We’ll have you out of the car in a little bit buddy, hang in there, we’ve got to cut you out.” I told him weakly, “I’ve been out of the car already.” He gave me a weird look, turned to the medical guy behind him, said something to him, then that guy shot a ‘relaxer’ into the hanging I.V. tubing that ran into my left arm.

Later, while in the emergency triage room, I repeated the statement above, at which time the nurses running about asked my father to come and look after me. I told my father that I had to tell him something. By then I began to realize that what I wanted to say to everybody wasn’t going to be seen as ‘sane’. So I told him to remember something. He looked confused, but said he would. He looked even more confused when I told him to remember the licence plate of the van (that I was driving) was snapped in the middle of the letter “V”.

Months later, when we went to I.D. the car(s) at the impound lot (as a part of the Police investigation), we approached the cars together. And there, hanging from the front bumper, was the license plate. Neatly snapped in the center of the letter “V”. My father stared, obviously remembering what I had asked him to remember, for what seemed like a longer-than-appropriate time. The cop asked us if we could identify our vehicle. We both ignored him as my father turned to me and slowly said, “You couldn’t have possibly seen that plate from where you were in the car.” I said to him, “I told you, I got out of the car.”

As we drove back home in silence, having identified who’s vehicle was which, my father had only one bit of advise for me. He said, “Let’s not tell your Mother, O.K.?” “I don’t think she’d understand.” I said, “Yeah, you’re right.”
It was enough for me to know that he understood.