I've heard people say that your life flashes before your eyes and you see a bright light when you are about to die. I didn't see any of that. The only thing I saw was the ground. I watched as my head collided with the hard packed dirt of the arena, then I saw nothing. At least, I don't remember seeing anything.

As you may have read in my Why Do You Want To Be a Mortician? hub, a horrible accident pointed me in the right direction to pursue my real calling. If you haven't read it, here's a synopsis: I was a horse trainer and a horse I was training in 2001 fell down, tried to get up, and fell down again. I wasn't wearing a helmet and my skull fractured in 3 places. I was put on a helicopter and flown to a hospital in New Mexico where there was a great neurosurgeon. Along with my brain problems, I developed septicemia (blood infection) from a contaminated IV given to me in the riding arena at the ranch. Anyway, the prognosis was horrible and I wasn't expected to live. I experienced things during my week-long coma that gave me the courage to wake up, endure rehabilitation therapy, and go to college to be a mortician (funeral director / embalmer).

Those "things" that I experienced while I was comatose are still like a dream to me. I consider that dream to be my personal Near Death Experience. That's the only way to describe it.

I wasn't thrown into a coma right away. Witnesses say that I was screaming, thrashing around, and tearing at my clothing like a wild animal. The doctors said that it was indicative of a serious head trauma. The scans and medical images proved that my skull was fracture in 3 places and my brain was swelling. It wasn't until after arriving at my hometown Emergency Room that I went comatose. I wish I was awake for the following helicopter ride... I'll bet we were flying super fast!

You would think that what happened next would be frightening, but it wasn't. I'm usually apprehensive about entering new places, but not this time. It was complete darkness (or maybe grayness) but it wasn't scary. I felt disconnected from my body. Like if I had a soul, it left my damaged body (I now believe that souls exist...skeptic turned devout believer here).

I didn't feel like I rose up or flew anywhere. I was still around. Then I started hearing voices. They weren't the voices of spirits, angels, dead people, or God. I heard my family members and friends. They were praying aloud and silently hoping that something, anything, could be done to save me. I heard everything they said and didn't say. It's like I caught their prayers as they were on their way to God's ear.

It wasn't just the relatives and friends that surrounded me, either. I heard them all. It sounds crazy, but I even heard my aunt. She was in China for a meeting (IBM) when she got the news. Before jumping on the next flight to podunk New Mexico, she purchased a jade necklace for me because of the stone's healing properties (I don't know much about that). While waiting for a connecting flight in NYC, my aunt went to a Catholic church and prayed. I heard it! I couldn't believe it!

It seemed as though everyone was pulling for me. Then I heard another voice. Well, it wasn't like I "heard" it. It was more like I felt it. It was both foreign and familiar to me. It wasn't a man's voice, nor was it female. Dang, this is hard to explain. It greeted me, and right then I knew I was neither dead nor alive. I guess we human beings have a word to describe that... limbo or something. But it wasn't negative like many people think of limbo as being. I didn't feel lost, neglected, forgotten, or abandoned. The Catholics have the idea of limbo all wrong (I'm half Catholic, I can say that :). Limbo is just the place to make an important decision: stay alive, die, or think about it. I just felt like I was at a "T" in a road and I had to make a choice. The mystery "voice" told me to choose.

Then I saw what awaited me. Just for a brief moment, I witnessed the life after this one. It wasn't a light, it wasn't a bright shiny white place with angels flying around playing harps or anything like that. It was more like that movie "What Dreams May Come". The afterlife is YOUR idea of joy, happiness, and paradise, not this generic one-fits-all type of happy place. Anyway, I saw it and I was so close, and I could have chosen it, but I didn't.

I saw my mom, my dad, my little brother, my grandma, and my friends. They were so sad. Their despair was such a drag. They pulled everything around them down into a sinkhole of depression and sadness. I just wondered to myself and asked the mysterious voice a question, "If they're this sad now, what will happen when that line on the monitor goes flat and I actually die?" Without even waiting for the mysterious voice to answer me, I knew what would happen. My death would absolutely destroy my family and everyone I loved.

So, I decided to be one of those lame-os and wait a few days to make my decision. Like a selfish prick, I was drawn to the joy and excitement of the afterlife. But by choosing that, I would have to leave my family and friends to fend for themselves. Of course, there were cons of choosing to stay alive too. The voice told me that if I chose to stay alive, I would have to endure the frustration of intense physical and speech therapy. Despite the warning, I chose to stay alive. And just like that, the blackness (or grayness) disappeared and the colors hit me.

That's when I woke up from the coma. I saw the colors as soon as the pain hit and I realized the severity of the situation. My whole body hurt and my brain wasn't letting me think clearly. I wasn't understanding anything that was happening to me or around me. It was all still like a dream.

Like I said, this happened in 2001. I woke up from the coma a few days before the terrorists attacked the Twin Towers in New York City. At that time, I was using a metal walker to get around, going through physical therapy trying to learn how to walk without dragging my left leg, and enduring speech therapy to re-learn how to communicate efficiently. When those planes were crashing into the buildings, I thought it was a movie or a dream. It didn't seem real to me, and the magnitude of the event never really hit me until I visited Ground Zero while modeling in New York City in 2005. I wish I could remember that day like every other American is able to, but it all seems like a nightmare to me. I guess that means I do remember that day like every other American, huh?

After a few months, I ditched the walker and I was able to walk on my own. My parents still made me wear a helmet wherever we went and I still operated my body like a stoke victim, but I was happy to be alive. My family is eternally grateful as well, even though they won't talk about my accident because of the pain and emotion it stirs up.

My recovery was long but successful. My only residual side effects are the loss of hearing in my right ear and that causes a problem with my equilibrium which in turn affects my balance. My short term memory is also horrible now and I have to write everything down to remember it. I graduated high school on time even though nobody thought I would because the accident made me miss the first few months of my senior year of high school. Then I went to college and got 2 degrees at once, one in Agricultural Business and the other in Mortuary Science. My near death experience opened my eyes to the importance of death, and I wanted to help grieving families though that difficult time in their lives. I almost put my family through all of that pain! So I became a mortician (funeral director / embalmer). I am very happy doing the job I do, and even though I hardly get the gratitude I should, I know that my job is very important.

As difficult and heart-wrenching as that story was to retell, I'm glad I did it. Now you know my story and my reason for pursuing my calling in life. The spiritual events go much farther than just my comatose experience, and I'm still trying to understand all of that. My job keeps me in contact with so many spirits and emotions that it is often hard to sleep at night, but that's a different story and this one was long enough for one day. Whether or not you think I'm crazy, I want to thank you very much for reading about my experience. I wish you the best of luck finding your own answers about life after death.