Sight...

  Let’s start off describing the day I lost it all. I grew up on Lake St. John which is a beautiful lake in Louisiana and a wonderful place for a young boy to grow up. The year is 1973 and the Mississippi River had been really high that spring. The result caused the lake to rise and cover our pier with about 3 feet of water which in turn caused us to build a higher ramp from the bank so we could get to our boats. Later in the summer the lake fell rather rapidly and what was safe to dive into one day was not the next day (obviously). The day I broke my neck was like any other.

  

  Nothing special seemed to be going on in early August. I think someone must have yelled, “Let’s go swimming” and the race was on. I was running as fast as I could and then I remembered the ramp. I could be the first in the water if I dove off the ramp. I made the prefect dive! But the lake was lower than I remembered it. I hit the bottom head first and tingles went through my body and then there was nothing. I’m floating to the top and still holding my breath. I can’t move but that seems to be secondary to my need for air. I try turning my head to get a breath but I can’t turn it far enough. I try to move but there is nothing … as if my head is no longer connected to my body.

I am almost ready to take a gasp of water when someone turns me over. “I’ll save you!” It’s my brother Keith. He thinks I’m playing a game that we used to play like we were knocked out or something and then one of us would come to the rescue and pull the pretending person to safety. Only this time it wasn’t a game. When he gets me back to shallow water, he tries to stand me up but I can’t stand. All I can manage to get out is a faint “thank you”.

  

  I don’t know how long I was there or how they got me out of the water but I think Jimmy Ray Oliveaux helped. I do remember him being there along with my mother and Maggie. I remember my dog Queenie bringing me a rock to throw. But I couldn’t and I remember apologizing to her for not being able to play fetch. My body was completely relaxed and I didn’t feel anything from my neck down.

  Fast forward a couple of hours and we are on our way to New Orleans. I have no sense of time, only the idle chit-chat going on between the paramedic and the driver. I could see my mother and her worried face. I do remember that someone said that I must be important because they never had escorts all the way from Natchez to New Orleans. I don’t know how fast it was but they were happy because they had gotten there faster than anybody else had before. 

  

  Fast forward again and I’m aware that I’m surrounded by doctors asking me “do I feel this or do I feel that”. NO! I don’t feel anything. I guess I panicked and began throwing a fit. Well, as best I could because I can’t move. The most I can muster is a thrashing of turning my head. One of the younger interns grabbed my head to hold it still and said, “Be still you little son of a bitch! You broke your third vertebrae and severed your spinal cord. We are trying to figure out why you are still alive.” Then he looks at me “We don’t know why you are still alive so please be still or we will screw a ring around your head to hold you still”. I guess bedside manner was lacking in the 1970’s but the thought of that was enough to keep me still. I didn’t want the only thing I could feel (my head) to be in pain I was good the rest of the night.  I spent a couple of days in ICU then moved to a room where despair set in…

  

The visit

  

  That night, the night of my visit started with me praying for death. Not just an ordinary prayer but the hardest I have ever prayed. I wanted to die. I didn’t want to live in the condition I was in. Paralyzed with no feeling whatsoever and I had no hope of ever being any different. I remember falling to sleep with those prayers on my lips and I had a feeling that they were going to be answered. My mother, who was in my room with me, must have had the same feeling because she was crying and begging me not to pray that I would die.

  

  Sleep comes quickly and soon I realize that I’m not really asleep but aware in a way that seems vaguely familiar. Next I notice someone I know coming down the hall and I can see through the walls. I can see it is Jesus and two angles, one on each side of Him coming down the hall. I know they are coming for me and I’m not afraid anymore. Fear seems to have left me at the sight of Jesus but something else has replaced it. Pity, at first, for the condition that I’m in physically and mentally then pity is replaced with guilt. I have to look away from Him because I cannot bear the feeling of condemnation that has came over me.

  

  It is as if a thousand lifetimes of guilt has been accumulated and poured out on me at once. I can’t see anymore as I’m blinded by my on heart and I’m speechless. My guilt has condemned me to death. I’m without hope, lost in an eternity of despair. Then He touches me and my sight returns. I look into His eyes not knowing what to expect. Condemnation wasn’t there, Judgment wasn’t there. The most loving gaze I have ever seen is all I see. No judgment, no guilt, no condemnation was there and as I look into His eyes all of my guilt melts away. I realize that my past doesn’t matter to Him and all the things that I thought I did or didn’t do wasn’t important to Him. The only thing that concerned Him was that my guilt didn’t concern me and the longer I looked into his eyes it didn’t concern me anymore. I realized that it wasn’t important, like it hasn’t really happened. I realized that what is important is standing right in front of me and His gaze is transforming me back into my true self.

  

  For the first time in a very long time I remember who I am. I am still as Father created me. I am perfect, without flaw and I am free. I realize that all my memories are but nightmares to be forgotten as soon as I awake. To be dismissed! I can move freely in and out of my body, light is everywhere and there seems to be singing coming from the two angles. I am no longer a part of time and I remember this is who I am, this how I was created and this is who I was created to be with. Then Jesus tells me that I must go back to my body, that I have something to accomplish before this dream is done.

I look at my broken body in the bed and the next thing I know I am back inside my body. His gaze is still on me and I can feel my legs. My movement has returned to my arms. I can move my toes and legs. And then He seems to be fading from my sight and I don’t want Him to go. Then He says to me that “I will never leave you. We were created as one with each other and one with our Father and nothing can usurp the power of our Father. I will always be with you”.

   

  Then, I’m awake in this world again but it is different. I can move! I can feel! And I know that I will never be alone again! At that instant the physical therapist come in to move my arms and legs. As she picks up my leg, I push back against her hands. “Can you move?” she asks. I say, “Yes and I feel your hands on my foot.”  She runs out of the room screaming for the doctor who could not have been very far because it was just a moment and he was in the room. There were lots of questions about what I could feel and a lot of poking me with pins to see the extent of my recovery. Then the oldest doctor takes a step back and instructs the younger ones to leave me alone. Then he says something I will never forget “Fit him with a brace. It seems he is out of our care. Someone with much more knowledge than the four of us is caring for him now”. That was the last time I saw the doctor.