Educational Experience

Part III--Chapter 13

Still working on this one, but I didn't want to leave you in suspense any longer. Wisdom from The Other Side. And the song is something Aisha might turn to at a moment like this, BTW. I'm not a devoutly religious person, but I love the gospel music my parents' churches sang so loud and proud back when I was a kid, and knew this particular song from a CD I bought years ago. I think it expresses the faith someone like Aisha would turn to, when all seems lost. It may even lift you up a little bit today...

Just so you know, you don't just disappear when you die. I mean, not the part of you that drives the body you were in.

So first, you see the little highlight reel of your life run by like a movie preview or something. I've told you about that, remember? God doesn't judge you. You do. You remember all that right?

But here's the part I didn't know 'til my second trip to The Other Side. See, once you've given your life a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down," that driver part of hovers around watching for a while. I don't know what happens after that, because they forced me back into my bullet ridden body that day.

I know that hurt like hell. That brain chemical that's supposed to stop it from hurting when you're hurt real bad doesn't work forever. So I could feel all the torn up places. In fact, I could tell where the damage was so bad they might not be able to repair it.

That's the thing. Your monkey mind shuts off and all the energy you'd probably use freaking out about being all ripped up gets sent where it's needed most. That way, your body can sort of try to reboot itself.

So I guess that's why the driver part takes off like that. To let your body take the wheel for a while. My driver was up there watching the doctors and nurses trying to fix me, and all the people I love running around screaming and crying and praying and just generally losing their minds every time the little beepy thing flat lined.

And it flat lined a lot. But I knew my body was just sort of testing my heart muscle to see if it was strong enough to handle the hard work it would take to bring me back. I could feel it switch on, then off for a few seconds, like you do with your router when your Internet won't connect.

The most frustrating part was not being able to send some kind of sign or something, to keep everybody from suffering while my body was running the diagnostics. And I could see them clear as day. My eyes were totally open. But they looked dead. No pilot light.

I even heard a paramedic do that, "Pupils fixed and dilated," like they do on TV shows. That's when they quit pumping my chest and sticking all kinds of needles and whatnot in me.

And that's also when my eyes closed. Or maybe someone closed them. I'm not sure. But after that, I couldn't open them, so I could only listen. I shouldn't say "only," because I heard everything.

Some noises that told me how frantic the paramedics were ripping things open and hooking me up to things. And then there were the big noises, like the one paramedic that kept saying stuff like, "C'mon, young blood! You can fight harder'n' 'at!"

But the worst sound was Aisha moaning, "Lord, please don't take my baby, don't take my baby," in this sobby voice that came closer to killing me than that Mac 11. I couldn't die. I wasn't sure what she might do if I did.

The other two kept asking the paramedics and everybody else all these questions. Mike sounded mad at them, but that was just her macho side showing. Cat did her Mama Bear thing, trying to sound calm but also kind of businesslike. Like she was trying to really hear and think about what they were saying.

But Wyatt, man, she saved my life. I'm not exaggerating.

I mean, just when they'd declared me good and dead, I heard her scream, "No, don't! You have to keep—why is he doing that?!"