Diary entry from January 1991: “I am approaching 35. I swore I wouldn’t live past 34. I seem to have met and conquered my worst fears, tried to fix myself emotionally, but I have lost much interest in everything. I’m going skiing before I turn 35. Perhaps I’ll have a freak accident and die there. I sort of hope so. And I’m at the point in my life where I don’t believe in God or me anymore. I know it is time for me to leave.”
I returned home from my trip on Friday, February 9. I was feeling very depressed. On the night of February 10, I was feeling very depressed. I drank two beers and went to bed around 10:00 or 11:00 p.m. I don’t believe I was on medication at that time. Around two a.m., (it’s now February 11) I started waking up. My body was vibrating inside fiercely, as if electricity was circulating in every part of my body. I felt like a rocket about to launch! The vibrations were so strong I could hear the noise. In my mind (for lack of a better explanation), I could see across the street, as if I was standing near the window of my bedroom. I started to wonder if we were experiencing an earthquake. But, I couldn’t see anything outside shaking. Then for a few seconds, the vibrations stopped and started again. This time, in my mind, I could see down my staircase, as if I was actually standing at the top of the staircase, again wondering if an earthquake was happening. The front door seemed to be shaking. My rational mind determined that an earthquake couldn’t be happening because, although my body was vibrating intensely with energy, neither my bed nor my body was shaking as in a real earthquake. Once again, the vibrations stopped.
I lay there for a moment, asking myself, what had just happened. Was it an earthquake? No. Was I having an out-of-body experience, maybe. I don’t know if it’s true that we can. All of a sudden, I heard a voice in my mind. It said: “Act as if I was there.” And the vibrations started again and after a few seconds, they stopped. I asked myself: “What the hell was that?” The vibrations stopped again, and again I heard, in my mind, “Act as if I was there.” So I thought to myself: “Act as if ‘who’ was there, the Big Guy?” The moment I said that, a full-blown, live 3-D scene of the Calvary was playing in my mind. I could see Jesus alive, nailed to the cross, and people were walking about. Everything was in gray. I kept wondering what was happening to me. I was asking myself questions like: “What am I seeing here? Am I seeing myself in a previous life?” (I don’t discount that maybe there could be such a thing as a previous life, but I don’t believe in it.)
Instantly, the scene changed. I could see three middle-aged women dressed in black, kneeling at the bottom of the cross. They were crying. So I then thought to myself: “What and why am I seeing here? Was I one of these women in a previous life? Is that supposed to be me? The moment I thought that - poof! - I was the one kneeling at the bottom of the cross. And now, I was crying, both at the foot of the cross, and real tears were falling down my cheeks in bed. And I saw Jesus, with his head turned to the right, screaming loudly in agony. I thought to myself: “Why do they always hurt the things that I love?” Then I heard Jesus’ voice (who else could it be?), not with my ears, but with my mind. He said, “Pain is the measure of your love.” He didn’t say, Hey, I know its tough man. Hang in there. It will all work out.
Now, while the rational/logical/conscious side of me is analyzing everything, wondering what the hell (pardon the pun) was happening to me, I felt that, beyond a shadow of a doubt, I knew that this was really God talking to me. There was a divine quality to the whole experience that was more vivid then everyday life, and it wasn’t like anything close to the thousands of dreams I had. I can’t explain the event other than to say: I knew it could be no other than God.
Although I was at the foot of the cross in the scene, I could also see “everything” as if I was an observer at a distance. Jesus turned his head to the center of the cross and looked down at me. I thought to myself: “Please don’t ask me to look up at you.” And I heard Jesus say/think: “Look up.” I thought: “I can’t.” Again, he said “look up.” Again I replied, “I can’t!” (It was too humbling).
Then, without moving his mouth, I heard the following: “You always said you did not want to live past 34. Is this still your wish?” By then I was crying in my bed quite a bit. I replied to Him: “No. It’s just that I am so tired of being alone.” As soon as I said that, the whole experience stopped. Yet, here I was, reciting out loud, in French, the prayer “I believe in God Almighty…” and I couldn’t understand how I could possibly remember this prayer. I hadn’t said it in over 25 to 30 years, and rarely spoke French. Exactly 12 hours later, on that same day, I turned 35.