Just a glimpse

I think I've written about this at one time or another but here it is again.

When I was around 10 or 11 I was running through the house chasing one of my sisters and ran knee first into the head of a nail that had worked it's way out of a door facing. My mom says she's not sure if the pain was so intense that I couldn't catch my breath and just stopped breathing and fell to the floor or if I stopped breathing when my head bounced off the floor after I passed out from the intense pain, but either way, when she reached me I wasn't breathing.

My only clear memory from the incident was running through the house, and then suddenly being in the most beautiful garden I could ever have imagined. The grass was tall and lucious, the trees a deep, calming, green, and there were flowers everywhere, as far as I could see. I felt totally and completely at peace. I could hear my mother call me from far off and I remember thinking I wish she'd hush and go away. Then just as suddenly, I was lying in the floor, having my teeth shaken out of me by my mother. I had a sore knee and a knot on my head for a few days but no lasting effects from my injury, the nail didn't even break my skin.

For years I never told anyone about the "garden" part of the experience but one day I read a book about near death experiences and realized, "Hey, that happened to me", and later on I asked my Mom about that day and told her what I remembered about it. She just said, "Well, you never know." I know I'll never forget that place I visited for those few seconds and if that's what is waiting for us on the "other side", then we surely have nothing to fear from death.