by Michellenea Futrell
I’m almost forty now. In the last few years I’ve thought about these events every day. I constantly feel like someone who has partial amnesia—a part of me keeps nagging at me, but as hard as I try, I can’t remember everything. It’s time for me to come to a better understanding of what happened to me, why it happened, and what do I do with it. I was twelve years old when I attempted suicide. Life at home was anything but happy. It was Nov. 17th 1975. My father had shown me his high-blood-pressure medication just two days before. He kept the bottle on the top shelf of the medicine cabinet and had said to me that he needed to get it refilled the next day, and that by far it was the most dangerous thing in the house. If one of us were to take it accidentally, it could kill us.
Sure enough, the bottle was full. I remember it took me such a long time to swallow all the pills. I was never afraid, though; only sad that I believed at that time there was no other alternative.
I went to my room and climbed into bed, thinking I would just go to sleep and never wake up; my family would finally be happy. It didn’t end up being that simple. I woke to feeling that my chest and throat were being crushed. I couldn’t breathe or yell out for help. In a desperate attempt to get relief from what was happening to me, I ran to my mother’s bedside. She was a nurse, and I thought she would be able to stop it. I couldn’t tell her what I had done, or tell her what I needed. But I remember vividly fighting for her to breathe air into my mouth. It took her a moment to realize that I was in real trouble. I fought as long as I could, and by now everyone in the house was awake and I could hear them screaming. My mother and aunt were on top of me holding me down; my head started feeling dizzy and the pain started to ease. My body felt as though it was getting lighter, lifting off the floor. I remember thinking, “This must be how it feels when you are dying.” I stopped struggling, closed my eyes, and felt myself float away into unconsciousness.
It seemed like only a moment or two passed before I opened my eyes. It was pitch black. My first thought was of the absence of pain, and how relieved I was that it was gone. I couldn’t figure out where I was. I wondered if it were so dark in this place because no light existed, or if I was unable to see. So I brought my hand up in front of my face. I could see it there, completely intact, but without flesh. I quickly scanned my whole being and realized I was different, but very much whole, and I knew everything I had always known. Looking around me I realized I was not standing on anything; there was no
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ground beneath my feet, no sides or corners to walk towards in this place; it was just space that went on forever. I then noticed a tiny white light far away, like a star. I had just begun to think about how I could get to it and I started moving towards it. The closer I got, the faster I was moving, and the larger and brighter it became. I remember thinking that the light was so bright it might hurt my eyes, so I closed them real tight and braced myself for what I thought would be an impact when I ran into it. Instead there was none. It was like floating through a thin veil, and being bathed in white light.
Before I could even open my eyes, I felt this new place. I’ve searched my whole life for words to describe the amount of love and serenity there, but none exist. I had never known what real love felt like, and I sincerely do not believe that we are even capable — in our usual state of being. I opened my eyes a little at first, just to make sure it was okay. They did not hurt as I thought they would. So, wide-eyed, I began to look around me for someone, something, wondering what this place was. Wherever I was, it was the most wonderful place I had ever known, or could have ever imagined, and I never wanted to leave!
Then I heard a man, gently, softly: “You can not stay here with me.” I remember feeling desperate to locate him, but I couldn’t. I soon realized that the white light was coming from him, and he knew me. As though I had left him, and he was there to greet me and explain what was going to happen and why. I immediately responded in my mind with, “I do not want to leave here!” He chuckled at the determination in my response, like a parent of a child that has innocently requested something that he knows they are not ready for. I knew him right at that very moment. He loved me, no matter what I had ever done, no matter what I would ever do. And I knew that this love he felt for me would never change or diminish. It would stay forever constant, and not just for me, but for everyone, and for every living thing, for all time. He would never harm me; he was incapable of doing all the horrible things I had been told in Sunday school.
Please don’t misunderstand, he was not ambivalent about my wrongdoing. He was simply like a parent who loves his child unconditionally. He knew the reasoning behind my acts, right or wrong, and he still loved me. He is also quite capable of being disappointed and firm when need be — as I would experience much later in my life.
He followed with a promise to me: “It is not time for you to be here with me, but some day you will come back and can stay then.” I remember beginning to feel very afraid that he
