Joanna's NDE
Experience:
Let me tell you a bit about myself before I begin. I am a 46 year
old woman now. I live alone with my dog and cat. I have multiple
disabilities that keep me at home most of the time. My days are either
Good Days or Bad Days, depending on my disabilities. I live with chronic
pain in some manner every day from the time I wake up until I go to bed. I
am stubborn so I refuse to give into the pain or illness and just live the
best and fullest I can for the day. I have a home health aide that comes
here twice a week. She is young so I end up redoing most of her work but
she is getting better as time goes on. My daughter is going to be 24 this
month and is making a good life for herself since she left and abusive
husband a few months ago. My existence today is due to her need for me as
she grew up and for no other reason am I here today because in the past
Suicide was something I had planned down to the time I was going to do it. I knew as soon as she was on her own with her life stable
to the point that she no longer needed me I was going to put my life to an
end. But I got a lesson I would like to share with you. I do hope it helps
someone.
I started being ill in the early 1980s. Physically it started about
1983 with my insides. Around 1985 I was hospitalized after I was unable to
stand or walk due to a back injury from playing softball in 1981. I was
told I might never walk again. I was divorced trying to raise my daughter.
So I ended up never able to hold on to a job due to one illness or
another. I found myself on welfare unable to work at all. Because as the
years passed my illnesses got worst. In 1987 I lost 45 pounds in about a 3
month time. No DR could find out what was wrong with me. I was finally
diagnosed in the early 1990s and told there was no cure or surgery that
could help me. Not much is known about what I have so I must live life as
best as I can. Medication has not helped it. I tell you that so you
will know when I talk about being depressed you will understand how and
why it got to the debts of wanting to take my own life. I came to know a
lot of humiliation due to my illness. Being as young as I was and not
being able to live life as normal made me feel like I will never have love
in my life so once my daughter moves on her own I will be alone. There is
nobody that is going to want someone with even One of the problems I have.
Never mind once the rest of them came along.
In 1992 I was taken to the hospital in an ambulance. I was informed in
the emergency room I was having a heart attack. The DR and nurses were a
little surprised at that because I was only 37 , I was White I was Female
without HighBlood Pressure or High Cholesterol. All of a sudden I cried
because I did not want to die...Death started to scare me. In the Intensive Care Unit relatives came and went. I
did not realize how bad I was. My ex-husband showed up in the room
with my daughter. He told me not to worry about my daughter because he and
his wife would take good care of her because they did love her. That is
all I remember of the visit.
As my ex-husband was telling me that I was watching what looked like a
white coating starting to cover the door I was facing. It was going from
the bottom upward. It slowly covered the whole area where everything I
could see was of the cleanest purest white I had ever seen before in my
entire life. My daughter has told me at the time she was there with her
father she had thought I had fallen asleep but all of a sudden she heard
the heart machine beep a long sound and the line was flat across. They
stepped back as a team of about 5 people came around me telling of things
to get and do. She saw someone come to me with the machine to paddle my
chest and the curtain was closed at that time. They were asked to wait in
the waiting area. So they left got escorted there and told someone will be
out to tell them what is going on as soon as they could.
I was in an atmosphere of the best feeling I have ever had in my life. I
was continuing further and further deeper and deeper into the area I was
in. Never have I seen or even imagined a place of such purity and peace.
Serenity tranquility and a calm I have never known before was present
there. I could tell there was no illness Pain or Suffering of any kind
there. Nothing at all negative was anywhere in the area. Nothing bad or
evil was there. The more I looked around the better things seemed to be
getting. I do remember feeling and saying out loud Awe because I was
Awestruck. As I looked ahead I saw the softest of white I had ever seen.
It was spread out as far as my eyes could see. It seemed to go on for
miles in length and width. I was amazed and kept looking ahead and I
started to see the color of a light bluish gray in the bottom of the soft
whiteness. As I drifted on I started to make out that the color I could
see was really the silhouettes of people. Big Small Young Old there were
no races to anyone because they were all silhouettes. There were many of
them there. So many not to be able to count them. There was a sense of
unconditional love all around. I wanted to continue on. I wanted to know
what this place was. I wanted to belong to it. The closer I got to
them it seems like a white fog was being lifted in order for me to see
better and closer. At about that time I was being approached by what
appeared to be a woman. She came close enough to me to take my hand. I do
know I felt love for her as soon as I set sight of her. I got a feeling of
love and acceptance as soon as my eyes got sight of her. All the other
people stayed where they were and looked as if they were talking with each
other. I do know that woman and I talked for a while. I do not know what
was said. I was opening my eyes my head was tipped to the floor. I was
trying to raise my head to see where I was but my head was too much at an
angle for me to lift it up. So I looked to my right and there stood a
stranger I had never seen before. He said "Hi!' You must not be
comfortable like that. I will put your head up for you. Then he said: You
gave us quite a scare young lady. The man was the doctor that got my
heart started again. I remember not wanting to talk. I felt very sad and
empty. I was confused. I closed my eyes because I wanted to repeat the
feeling I had just had. I wanted the white and everything about it. But
when I closed my eyes it did not work.
I did not understand any of it until I was watching TV on night and
someone came on that had a near death experience. As time has gone on I
came to realize that it happened to me too. This is the type of thing that
does not come up in an everyday conversation so I did not understand
anything until TV came to open my eyes. The more I seen things like this
on TV the more I came to accept what happened in 1992. When I have tried
to talk to people about it I am met with doubts if what I am telling them
truly happened to me or if I only dreamed it did. Since that day, I
do know I have changed my thoughts and feelings about many things. I got
to talk with 2 different people before they died and shared what happened
to me with them in hopes for them to not fear death. I do know I developed
a very meaningful relationship with a young man that did die a few months
ago. We could speak of death to each other because he was dying of CF.
I do not know why I am living here today. My life is not good. I live as
I always have except now time has made my illnesses worst and I can now
add Heart Disease to the list...I still need help from time to time. I
have needed help in and out of the bathtub a few months ago. But my hands
are acting up so my functions are limited again right now. If I take in
any food at all I need to have a bathroom nearby within the hour after I
eat because I loose any foods I put inside. I live on Disability and Mass
Health now so what mass heath does not cover out of my necessities I need
to purchase myself so my apartment is not as full of food as it should be,
I will never give up my dog or cat in order for me to eat better because
they are the only was I get to give and get love on a daily basis. My
animals do not turn away because of the days and times I am sick. They are
here to love me no matter what condition I am in. So due to this on a hot
day I cannot even afford to get an Ice Cream Cone from the Dairy Queen.
There are a few times due to my life being so unfulfilled with love and
people that the lonesomeness has made me cry out to the heavens and ask to
show me what I am doing here. Why did I have to come back? I suffer so
much with physical pain or the pain of lonesomeness sometimes both at the
same time. I do not know what to do with myself.
I did stay with my mother in the hospital as she was dying of
cancer. The morning she passed away I heard her breathe a deep inhale then
saw her eyes open wide. She looked around the room with amazement. I ran
to get the dr. as the DR listened to her heart beating its last beats she
I was wondering what my mother was seeing to make her expression have so
much amazement. She had not even opened her eyes for about the last few
weeks before that happened. So I when I had my experience in 1992 I know
what she had seen when she died on Dec1,1991.
My daughter is the reason I have not fallen apart on this matter.
She is my walking peace of heaven. I do think of dying some days. I
do wish I would. But I no longer am able to even think of suicide. I
cannot even kill a fly or an ant if they come into my house. I put things
that fly in here out. The rest I have not had a problem with yet so they
get put out too. I do know suicide might not bring me back to where I went
in 1992 and I want to do everything in my power to go back there when the
time comes. So no matter how hard or tough life gets here. I will sit here
and wait. Because Death is not the end of life.
Death is an existence that is different from this one and a whole
world better... So, I will wait until my time comes to go.
I I thank all the people of this web site for giving me a feeling of
belonging and a feeling of connection to people again.