Julia Barrett's World

Hubby and I have this on-going argument - I say, “I’m coming back to this life again and you’re coming with me.” He says, “Well, what if I don’t want to come back with you? What if I’m done with this life? What if I’ve repaid all my karmic debt and I don’t want to come back?”

“You’re coming back and you’re coming back with me and you’re coming back as a man because I like being a woman, we’re so multi-orgasmic. YOU’RE COMING BACK! I’ve repaid my karmic debt and I’m coming back, the psychic said so.”

Hubby - “Well if you want to come back, obviously you haven’t paid your Karmic debt, you’re not ready for Nirvana.”

Me - “Of course I’m ready for Nirvana, (ego much?) but I don’t want Nirvana. I want drama. I love drama. And sex, I love sex. I’m not sure you get sex in Nirvana.”

Hubby laughs.

Me - “And the pets are coming back and everyone in our families because that’s what I want.”

Hubby - “Yeah, I want Louie to come back. I miss him. If Louie comes back, I’ll come back.”

“Me too.” Sigh. “Jake is great, and I totally love him, but Louie was a special being. Wait, you’ll come back for the dog, but not for me? I think I’ve been insulted!”

Hubby - “Wouldn’t you come back for the dog?”

Me - “I guess I would. I’d probably come back for my horse. I love the roller coaster that is this life.”

So why am I thinking about this? A friend of mine died during surgery. She coded and it took six doctors to resuscitate her. She was on a ventilator, unresponsive, for six days. And then she came back. She confided her experience to me today because she knows I died in an accident at the age of 16 - but I didn’t die enough so I was sent back. I totally believe her account because of the following -

1. She returned knowing that love is all we take with us.

2. All her existential questions were answered when she was dead, but she no longer remembers either the questions or the answers, she just knows she knew when she was dead.

3. Nobody sat in judgment. She assessed her life and her issues by herself, with guidance from another person, a male person whom she cannot describe, other than to say she sensed it was a he.

4. The colors of heaven made the colors of earth look like mere shadows.

5. Her only concerns were for the people she left behind.

6. She still felt like she inhabited a body.

7. Despite the fact that she’s a Christian and has always believed Jesus is THE way, she came back believing that your religion is of zero importance in the next world, it’s how you behave toward your fellow man in this world that matters in the next.

8. If you don’t get it right, you come back until you do.

9. The hardest part was coming back.

Yup - nailed it. I will never believe anyone who claims to have had an NDE and says that only people of a certain religion get into heaven. Never. Gonna. Happen.

Next ten books:

1. Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence

2. Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

3. Mila 18, by Leon Uris

4. Sacajawea, by Anna Lee Waldo

5. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

6. The Dragons of Pern - the entire series, by Anne McCaffrey

7. Shogun, by James Clavell

8. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

9. The Poems of Lao Tzu, by Lao Tzu

10. The Collected Works of Langston Hughes, by Langston Hughes