“Oh, Daddy, she is not going to stop!” I screamed.

Squealing tires, honking horns, then mangled metal and shattered glass gave way to twisted bodies and altered minds.

It took a few moments for me to realize my own flesh was garishly peeled back, dangling down over both of my eyes, preventing me from seeing my father’s feet in the floorboard of the car. Preventing me from seeing anything.

It was August 12, 1962. I was twelve, going on twenty.

“Daddy! Daddy! Are you OK, Daddy!?!” I called out.

Silence hung in the air.

Then suddenly, from somewhere, hands pressed against my forehead. I remember blurting out my name and telephone number—along with the name and phone number of the pastor of the little country church I attended each Sunday morning.

Those skillful hands pressing firmly against my scrambled tissue, slowing the bleeding, were the hands of a nurse, a woman who lived in the house at the exact location of the accident. A nurse who had just arrived home from work when she heard the crash. A nurse whose sweet voice reassured me over and over again, “Your daddy is OK. You are OK, too.”

Sirens in the distance became deafening as they bared down on that intersection… “Please make them stop!” I cried.

Almost two decades would slip by before I would read about death and dying, the work of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross. Better-late-than-never comprehension of my first out-of-body experience. All I knew that day was a total lack of pain, a lovely sensation of floating above my body, looking down, watching hands meticulously sewing dozens of stitches in my forehead.

But, I would not understand then (and perhaps not fully even now) how much my world view was changed the day that drunk driver stopped in the middle of the intersection at M-140 and Territorial Road.

My body was in a hospital room in traction when I came to. I had no knowledge of having been transferred to this hospital after the stitches, no awareness of having surgery to set my hip that had been dislocated at my pelvic bone.

Two weeks later I would go home. My father’s broken ribs would heal. My scars would always be hidden by bangs.

At the surface, my life seemed unchanged.

I got really good on the crutches. Living right next door to the school, carrying my books and my lunch, I could get across the lawn and be the first in line when the bell rang.

When did the dreams begin? Was it before or after I read about near-death awareness?

It is difficult to say when the dreams began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.

Bright light.
Warmth.
Profound love.

Was I the nurse, or was I the patient? Was I the drunk-driver or the young girl tossed like a beach ball into the windshield?

When did the premonitions begin?

It is difficult to say when the premonitions began, but they did not just happen when I was sleeping in bed at night.

Bright light.
Warmth.
Profound love.