Chapter One: Finding My Unfinished Business"

The previous evening, I am not sure of the time, but Friday evening, I was having a pretty heated argument with my daughter. She was living with me at the time, and newly pregnant, and not yet knowing this. She returned in November with her life mate, from service in the Army in Germany for about 3 ½ years. She spent a year of that time in Bosnia. She was a medic, and Bosnia, and the Army in general was good for her. She grew and flourished, her teen years behind her. But something eats at her, and we argued. I do not recall the reason anymore.

During the argument, I am stomping about the house, and experience a minor sudden pain to my right foot, but I am so angry, I fail to notice it much. I remember catching my foot on a carpet tack. I have trouble picking up my feet from my MS. Suddenly I am aware of my foot sloshing in fluid, my sandal filled to overflowing with blood. Immediately, I am in pain at this realization, lots of it. There are puddles of blood throughout the house. I have almost completely torn off my toenail on my large toe!

So we stop the argument, and mop up the mess. I bandage the toe after I get the bleeding stopped. I am unable to remove the toenail, hanging by a shred. Mostly no courage to do so. That I did not feel the pain of this on occurrence I find amazing. It had to have hurt! But in the heat of anger, we don’t sometimes notice pain. My daughter is in amazement also, that I have made such a mess about the house, and none of us noticed it. Quite a cleanup job.

I note in my Journal during the night, a comment: “My daughter will start to come to terms with her demons.” Little did I know as I wrote this, that I too, would begin come to terms with mine, starting in a few days. I am so depressed and angry with this shitty life I have led. I feel cooped up and doomed. My health is incredibly horrible, beyond description. I am 50, and a few years ago, I told my doctor I didn’t think I would see 50. I am 50, soon to be 51. My life is pure hell. I take some pain medicine and finally enter a state of restless sleep.

The next morning I still lack in courage to rip off that nail, it will hurt this time! So my daughter and my son in law take me downtown, a Saturday to my doctor’s office. He is there for some reason, and would rather I come in than go to an emergency room. I concur. He wants to pull the nail and he tries and I yell. Where is the pain tolerance this morning? So he shoots up the nail area with anesthetic, which probably hurt more than just getting it over with. And so I hobble back to the car and go home, minus the nail, to begin some healing. The weekend was not a comfortable one. I am used to pain and injuries, but this seems almost more than I can bear anymore. I am tired of pain.

It's now Monday, March 30 and when I arise, I have no idea that this is the day I will change forever. I decide to shower and clean the nail bed. All the bleeding is finally stopped. Upon getting into the tub, I somehow stub my toe, and the pain seems more than I can endure, emotionally. I have kept back the tears over the weekend, doing my famous,” let’s be brave now thing.”

I fall down into the tub, the tears now flowing in abundance, the first I think, for a long time. I say what turned out to be a prayer. It went like this: “God, I am so sick of tired of this bullshit.” I cry, I recover, clean the toe, dress it again, and get back into my day.

That afternoon, I am overcome with the urge to lie down, so I do for a bit, giving in. As soon as I lie down, I sense a “dimension change” coming on, a coldness, not a bad thing, this is a signal I am going into another world. I have done this many a time. It is very different from sleeping or dozing. Today it is more intense, and I feel a bit nervous about it. In fact, I begin to recite what I can remember of Psalm 23, "Yeah though I lie down in the valley of the shadow of Death, I will fear no evil."

Suddenly, the famous tunnel appears! I have never seen this, only read of it. I will apparently shortly be making my way “home.” And I am so tired of this life. But I resist; I refuse to go down the tunnel. So my welcoming committee on The Other Side comes through the tunnel into my living room. My grandmother is here, as is my departed beloved friend Betty, and Alan who passed this plane in 1994 from brain cancer. He was around 30 years of age. Alan is my nephew. My Grandmother passed in 1976, and Betty just one week past Diana’s death the previous fall. Betty had called me, on the day of Diana’s death, and asked me to come over and be with her. She informed me she would pass exactly a week later. And she did.

And there was one other, the “guardian angel” with whom I had been telepathic all of this life. I watch the three people sit down on the floor beside my couch; my angel sits on the back of the couch by my feet. He is clothed in white robes. We have a long conversation. I don’t want to go back, but then again, I do. I am reassured that I have done all I came to do, and it’s all right to come on home. But I feel I have unfinished business. Somehow my life feels undone. I know I meant to do so much more, and we continue to talk.

I meant to accomplish something, although I am told I have accomplished a good deal. They see that this has been a successful life. But I feel I have not been successful. I didn’t plan this illness stuff you know. It wasn’t part of the contract. It stole my life from me. My body failed me. I had planned to be on this plane 100 years I remind them. I want to heal. I want this life back. I am not thinking about grandchildren, and my own kids at this point. It is something more.

After lots of talking, we agree I will stay. I just can’t leave yet. I am shown a hologram of my father, and told to insist that he help me financially as needed. Sometimes he has resisted in the past in the help, and my Angel assures me, I will be helped. He will see to it that my father is made aware of my needs in dreamtime, or whatever else it takes. (And he often did.)

We discuss my father a bit more. He likes his girlfriends better than me. He also attempted molesting me in high school. I made a reunion with him around 1984. It is sometimes OK, and other times not OK. He is a difficult person. He is my blood father, but he and my mother divorced when I was an infant. She remarried when I was three. She mostly kept him away, as she was able, and when I became a teenager, I continued the avoidance, because of his physical interest in me.

Alan asks me to call his Mom. At this point he has stood up, still the tall handsome young man I remember. He is tall well beyond his nickname; we always called him, "Peanut." I promise to do so. She found it so hard to lose a son so suddenly at a young age. Alan's first sign of the brain cancer was a bad headache and vomiting that sent him to the hospital. He never went home, dying a short 2 weeks later. He had two totally different types of tumors. He hadn’t married, so at least he didn’t leave behind a wife and children.

So, finally the conversation comes to an end. They depart, wishing me well, and stating they will be supportive of me, as I journey into something new. I sit up on the couch. Now the real task lies ahead. My new journey has begun, and my demons must be answered to. I must find my unfinished business.

I have no idea where my journey I have just started will take me, but I am not saying no to this Earth. This is a painful place, but at the same time, incredibly beautiful. Earth is almost surreal to me. It always has been in this life. Fortunately I am still alone in the house. I make the call to Sandy, my sister in law, and find the courage to tell her of my visiting personally with her son, and give her his message of love, and that he is fine.

My real and most difficult work I have ever done, now begins.