One year ago, on August 21, 1987, my cousin, Kenny, was involved in a severe motorcycle accident. I think his story is pertinent. A few weeks ago I interviewed him and recorded his tale. The interview lasted ninety minutes and is too long to present here verbatim, so I have condensed it. Kenny was raised with no religion and has none today.

Kenny was riding his motorcycle to work at the evening shift at the plant where he works. He was driving 55 miles per hour on the highway when something told him he better really slow down. He slowed down to about 45, but gradually crept back up to 55. He came up over a hill and around a curve and noticed a car going real slow towards him in the opposite lane. He could see in the driver's eyes that she was going to turn, so he locked the brakes on the bike as she turned right in front of him. Everything about what to do ran through his mind in about three seconds. He decided to lay the bike down and try to wedge it under the car. He remembers everything about the accident. He told himself that it was going to hurt real bad and to be prepared. He remembers the slam into the car, sliding, hitting the car, and then he blacked out for just a second. As he awoke he found himself sliding down the highway.

He stopped and sat up on the road. The only thing that hurt was his hand burning on the asphalt. Nothing else hurt. He asked if someone would help him get up, but was told to look at his leg first. It was then he realized that he was sitting on his right leg. It had broken completely and was protruding out in back of him. He was telling someone from the Fire Station whom to contact when he lost his voice. They gave him pencil and paper but he started to lose his eyesight, also. It was then he knew that he was hurt real bad. Then a woman told him that she had his billfold. Although her face was clear, everyone else's was just a blur. As he was being loaded into the ambulance, she talked to him in very soothing voice and kept him calm. He could still see only her face.

I asked him if he knew this woman and he said no. But then he went on to say that it wasn't until about two months ago that he realized she was his Guardian Angel. She was present with him at the moment of the accident, at the hospital in intensive care and in his private room. He didn't know how to get in touch with her, but she seemed to appear at just the right
time. She never told him what to do, but by listening to him she helped him to make up his mind about what he needed to do.

He awoke after the first surgery and could hear the doctors saying to each other that he was not going to make it. Then he looked up at a heart monitor which then turned into a television and he could see his wife, Sandy, and his daughter, Erica, and one of his brothers talking about how serious the accident was. Kenny doesn't know whether it was a dream, a vision, or what, but to him it was real.

He was transferred to another hospital where additional surgeries were performed. The organs in his abdominal cavity had been pushed up into his chest. He was put on a respirator via a tracheotomy and was therefore unable to talk. He knew he was near death, although he didn't think he was hurt that bad since there didn't seem to be much pain.

After the second surgery he had a dream in which he was traveling down a cloud filled corridor, like walking into the big end of a funnel. At the end there was a small doorway. Through the doorway there was nothing but white clouds and blue sky. As he walked down the corridor he noticed that there were many people standing on either side of the walkway. He couldn't hear any voices, but saw a lot of sad faces, none of which he recognized. There were all dressed in a dull brown and a off gray mix. They had their arms raised and were pointing behind him. When he turned to look he woke up in the intensive care room.

After this he had many dreams and nightmares that seemed more real than mere dreams. If he would wake up in the middle of one, it would take up where it had stopped when he closed his eyes again. They seemed totally real to him and even today seem like a real memory rather than a dream. After his wife would visit, sometimes something that looked like his wife except for her eyes would come back into his room and tell him to just go ahead and die and not be a burden on the family. This went on for a period of time until he decided to reject what she told him.

Then he found himself back on the walkway in the corridor with everybody still dressed in the dull colored clothing. Again they were pointing behind him and he looked and he awoke back in his body. But after this time things started to get a little bit better. He could hear and comprehend people better. But then he began to relapse. He ended up in the corridor again.

This time the people were dressed in brighter clothing and he could hear voices and they were reaching out and touching him and waving him to come on. When he got to the threshold of the doorway, a figure in a robe with the hood pulled over his face walked up to him. Then the figure pulled the hood back and asked Kenny if he knew who he was. Kenny said that he thought that he was Jesus. The figure said that he was. Jesus asked if he knew that he had paid for his sins. Kenny then remembered all those terrible dreams; dreams of fire, of being paralyzed, of staying in the hospital for three years with one special nurse watching over him (his Guardian Angel). Jesus then asked him if he knew what had happened to him. Kenny said that he thought he had died. Jesus said that he hadn't died yet, that he had a choice. Kenny decided that if he was going to tell somebody that he wanted to die, then he wanted to talk to God, to see God. Jesus said that he could talk to God but he could not see Him. The only way Kenny could see God was to cross the threshold and leave his mortal life behind. Then Kenny heard the voice of God talk to him in the back of his head, telling him to listen to what Jesus had to say. Kenny told God that he had decided to die because he didn't want to be a burden on the family by being paralyzed. God said that was fine but let them see a few things first.

Suddenly they weren't standing in the corridor any more. Kenny was seeing the best memories of his life; of his family, riding motorcycles with his brothers, hunting, birthday parties when he was a little kid, water-skiing, everything. All the good times he had ever had. Then he saw the way his family's lives would go if he were not around. He saw his brothers having a good time but then stop and say, wish Kenny were here.

Next Kenny saw his own funereal. He saw his family and friends on a beautiful day with the sun shining and the birds chirping and the breeze blowing the trees. He saw his brothers pull up on trailers a couple of old cars as if in a good-by tribute. When the funereal ended, he saw his family's lives go on into the future. He saw all kinds of terrible things happen. He saw that his mother had a nervous breakdown (she lost her husband in an automobile accident ten years earlier.) One of his brothers was working in a woodshop and was thinking about Kenny and had a serious injury to his hand. He saw something similar happen to his other brother for the same reason; thinking of Kenny. His wife, Sandy, got into a serious car wreck one day because she was thinking of him. He saw his his daughter, Erica, grow up without a father. He saw her at a slumber party with her friends telling each other what their Dads did and Erica had to say that she didn't have a father because he had died when she was five years old.He saw the lives of his family and friends extended into the future without him. He never knew that the life of one person could have such an impact on so many people, even if in very subtle, little known ways.

Then he was back in the corridor and saw a vision of his how his life would be both as a totally handicapped person and the way he is now. Then Jesus said that he had been given two things to help make up his mind. One was that he could die. The other was that if he thought his injuries were too severe and more than he could stand yet he wanted to live, then somewhere in the future he would be placed back on the earth with the same identity he has now except nobody would know who he was. Kenny then decided to live. As he turned around to walk down the corridor he heard the voice of God tell him that he had made the right decision, and that he would have to go through some more suffering and pain but no more than two years.

As he continued to walk back toward his hospital room he started seeing visions of the future again. He saw visions of a civil war in the U.S. and a lot of needless murders and a loss of electricity throughout the land. Judging from the cars in the visions, he estimated that this would occur in about ten years.

When he awoke in his room again, he heard a voice tell him that the extent of his disabilities would depend upon how strong he was right then. He was told that he had to sit up in bed to prove that to live was what he really wanted. He tried to sit up but couldn't. Then his Guardian Angel, dressed as a nurse, came back into the room. He told her that he couldn't sit up. She said that if he didn't she didn't know what would happen. So Kenny tried with all his strength to sit up and finally made it this time.

By this time Kenny had been in intensive care for over two months. The doctor asked him if he could breathe without the respirator and Kenny said he thought he could. Shortly thereafter he was put in his own room. Less than two weeks later he was home. Everything ended up being exactly as he had foreseen in his vision regarding his residual disability. His thigh bone was never set with anything more than a splint because they didn't think he was going to live and didn't want to run up expenses. His right leg is shorter than his left because the bones overlap. His thigh bone has a fifteen degree angle to it at the site of the break. Kenny says that it doesn't bother him too much because he can still get around with the help of a brace and do everything he used to do except run.

I asked him what his feelings about death were now. He said that he was not worried about death anymore. Dying is no different than getting up in the morning and going to work. Everybody is so afraid of it, but when it comes your time, it is not that big of a deal.

I then asked if he had seen anybody he knew in his visions who was already dead. He said that he had seen his father. It took him a long time to go back down the corridor to his room the third time because he stopped to talk to his father. He doesn't remember all that was spoken, but does know that his father asked how everybody was, even though he seemed to already know. He also saw a lot of other people he seemed to know, but couldn't pinpoint names for any of them.

He also said that he was not told how his life would turn out, just that he would be through the pain within two years. Other than that he was just shown that he was the missing link with so many of his friends and his family. He now has a knew outlook on life. He enjoys going to work again. Before the accident he had a terrible attitude problem about work. He enjoys mowing the lawn and looking at life as a whole. He even enjoys hot summer days because he knows that if he had made the decision to die, that he would never have gotten to experience them again. Every day is a total celebration of life. The days fly by. He tries to live as much life each day as possible. They are going by almost too fast because he is having so much fun; more fun than any time in his life since he was a little kid.

I asked Kenny if he saw what was beyond the civil war. He said that it was like a whole new world; like a new unity of all the people. There would be a lot of harmony and working together to rebuild all over the world. He felt like he had something to do with the rebuilding but was unable to pinpoint exactly what it was. He feels there is a purpose to all the destruction but he hasn't been able to come up with what it is yet. He is still awaiting another vision on that.

His life is going great now. His family life is superb. Everything is falling into place in his life. It is a total celebration. Any problems that come up seem to solve themselves. Before, he had 150 projects going all the time with none of them ever getting done. Now all of his projects are getting done. He continues to have dreams or visions that come true. For example, he has a pickup with an extended bumper to support his camper. He had a dream in which it was bent because he didn't take it off. He remembered the dream but disregarded the warning. That day he twisted the bumper almost off. He had another dream in which he saw his brother buying a truck at a dealership not known for its good deals. That day on the way home from physical therapy Kenny stopped at the dealership to discuss buying a new truck. He argued price for a minute just like in the dream. Thirty minutes later his brother was filling out the papers for a new truck.

There is much we can learn from Kenny's story. I will offer only one thought. Would that we all could gain Kenny's renewed zest for life without going through a similar type of trauma.