A Life story finally having the courage to share
This is a Chapter taken from the book:
"The Rising of Blue Dawn"
~ by Julia Blackwood
I raise my hand to shield myself from what's coming.
In that moment everything stands still.
The music from the car radio fades and is replaced by my sharp intake of breath and by the sound of falling through time, through this space where everything is suspended in mid-air.
In this long moment that lasts for hours but is in reality only mere seconds, my life course alters.
Nothing will ever be the same again.
My world, my life, splits into two before I realize what has happened.
As we plunge down from a tall bridge into the pavement below
I enter the second part of my life.
The cracks that lay splintered across the window shield gleam orange in the setting sunlight.
The fine hairlines are spun into webs.
There are distant sirens. Besides that it is silent.
I try to move but my body feels heavy and immobilized.
I hear my friend who was driving speaking into her cell phone.
I can't make out what she is saying.
I try to open my eyes but can only barely open one, as my hand is jammed
up against my left eye. It's still in the same position I landed in.
A man's voice comes then. It is deep and soft and comforting somehow.
He tells me it's alright, he says more than that but all I can focus on is the
sound of his voice, not the words he speaks.
His voice resonates inside me and reassures me.
He begins laying towels across my forehead.
I want to thank him but I can't speak.
I struggle to make a sound, and when I finally do all
I can say is please no needles,
my fear of needles is overwhelming and I don't care
if I'm dying or not I don't want any needles near me.
I can't move. My white shirt is red.
There is more blood than I have ever seen.
I shut my good eye again and try to think.
This can't be real. I don't know how this can be real.
I must be still sleeping in the passenger seat,
I remember feeling so tired, this must be a dream.
All of a sudden I think of my jacket, my lucky jacket.
I knew I should have gone back, I never leave without it.
What is happening?
I can't understand anything.
I am brought back from my thoughts when I feel the man's hands on my face.
They are large and gentle.
Many years later I will meet him in a coffee shop and
I will get to thank him for coming out to save my life
but right now I don't know this.
I only know that I can't hold on any longer and
I slip out of consciousness and into the darkness of oblivion.
I awaken strapped to a stretcher as everything is rushing past me.
My boyfriend Jo is there with me.
It is an immediate comfort to hear his voice.
I know I must be dying. There is too much blood and too much pain.
Irrationally I don't want to die without being kissed
once more so I turn to him quickly.
“I know I look ugly, but please kiss me?”
This may be the last time I will ever be kissed, and he does.
Through the blood, he kisses me.
I still can't fully understand where
I'm going or what's happening to me.
I ask over and over again what is happening.
Suddenly I am rushed to a different hospital by a screaming ambulance.
They can't operate without having a cat scan done,
Jo rides with me and I am grateful to have him by my side.
I move in and out of reality until I am faced with the operating table.
Later I learn that Jo had to threaten them to take me as quickly as they did.
He threatened that if I died of negligence,
he would find them and hunt them down.
This was a threat that was not taken lightly,
considering that Jo was a large and intimating man
who when provoked would do anything to save someone he loved.
When it comes time for the needle I lose control.
I am terrified of needles. I start thrashing and
I kick the doctor between the legs.
I have an amazing amount of strength considering my head is split open.
Jo ends up laying on top of me.
With his 200 pounds pinning me down they still have trouble
putting the drip in but eventually they succeed.
As they lay me out on the table I can hear the doctor's voice,
he says
“What a beautiful girl.” He repeats it again and
I wonder how I can look beautiful.
There is a nurse getting ready to shave my head.
My hair is long, nearly to my knees and I don't want them to touch it.
My hair has never been cut. The nurse's name is Petro.
She has black hair and soft blue eyes and I keep looking at her face.
There is a kindness in it that comforts me.The operating lights flash on.
The lights are blinding. and I let myself fall then.
I know the people I love are with me.
I awaken the moment I die.
I am standing beside the nurse who is shaving my head.
I am watching her but I am completely emotionally detached.
There is a brilliant light next to me on my right hand side.
I can hear the doctor's talking about Rugby.
We are loosing to Australia. I can see people waiting outside the hospital.
There is a man in a business suit. I see my sister, and my friend Carinda.
I see my best friend Niki cracking jokes and exchanging recipes
with my friend Stefan dressed in a red polo neck top.
I know I have to go and greet my Gran.
There are no words.
Everything is thought. I think of her and I am there.
The connection I have with my Grandmother knows no boundaries.
Her soul and mine are joined.
They have been since I was a little girl.
We have always sworn that whoever had to leave this world
first would greet the other in passing.
I try to touch her, but there is an invisible glass that separates us.
She feels it even with this divider between us. She looks right at me.
She knows I am there. My aunt and cousin are with her and they begin to pray.
There is a feeling of trees as I move through this dimension.
I can feel people praying for me.
There are small golden circles everywhere.
I am in awe of the beauty that surrounds me.
I am in awe of how much I am loved. I know I am not finished here.
The moment these thoughts fill me I am plunged hard and painfully back into my broken body. There is no choice, although I am relieved to be back.
To be given this change to do what I was sent here to accomplish.
I know now what I have to do. I need to paint; to change people's lives with my art.
At the deepest level, the creative process and the healing process arises from the same source. When you are an artist, you are a healer.
The first thing the doctor asks me when I awaken is: “How does it feel to see the gates of heaven?”
I know I have been given this chance to help people
and I know it will be a long time before I am well enough to do it.
But nothing will stop me from accomplishing my path in this life.
Art is the only global language. It knows no boundaries,
favors no race, discounts no religion.
It has the power to transform and reveal our
most fundamental, spiritual beings.
It transcends our lives and forces us to imagine the impossible,
and even to believe it.
I never should have survived this accident.
But I defied all the odds and was
the first person to survive a head injury in the hospital
where I was operated on.
I will continue to show the world to
always strive to achieve the impossible and
I will live my life with as much truth and conviction and love as I can.
