NEXT LIFE EXPERIENCE

As I look back on the experience now, it was a very important thing that happened to me that day in 1974. The funny part is that it took me so long to really realize it. It happened so quickly, lasted such a short time, and yet today..almost 20 years later…it is the most vibrant memory of my life and it has affected my outlook on life more than everything else combined in my 44 years. (NOTE: now it is 2010 and it is still the most vibrant memory I have)

At that point in my life, it was summer and I was playing softball two nights a week (plus some week-end tournaments), working an 8 hour a day job, helping my dad with some of the farmwork and riding and racing my motorcycle on the weekends I wasn’t playing ball.

A number of years before (when I was 10 or 11) I had become involved with motorcycles and they were my true passion (and still are). I started in sixth or seventh grade and continued with them through high school and college and beyond. I have ridden a lot of different bikes for off-road or sneaking onto the local stock-car track to do some “flat-trackin.”

I graduated to real dirt bikes and trail bikes and had ridden hundreds of miles in the woods. I had even been riding this particular day, to get in some practice before the next race. I had driven up North, in Michigan, to ride some trails with a guy I had worked with. Gene and his family were staying at a cabin and he knew the trails in the area so he was my guide.

After unloading my bike, greeting the family, putting on helmet, boots and gloves, etc. we were ready to tackle the woods. Gene led the way and we followed the trails as they meandered through the lush foliage. I loved trail riding then and I still do today. I’m convinced that God knows what will truly make us happy in life and He knows that, for me……it’s riding bikes, especially in the woods.

As I said before, I was also into racing. What I rode were cross-country endurance races called “enduros”. They were timed events that led through woods, creeks, mud bogs, swamps, etc. and could be 75 miles in length, 150 miles in length or even 500 miles over the course of two days. I wasn’t a great racer by trophy standards but I enjoyed the sport and the people that were involved in it.

This particular day was sunny and warm…the trails were sandy but dampened by rain a day or so earlier sot they were not very dusty. Gene and I had gotten into an area that was hilly and it felt like a never-ending rollercoaster ride as we would first go over one hill…then down...swoop to the left or right...then back up another hill, over the crest and down……..mile after mile. Somewhere in the process, I had gotten ahead of Gene and I just kept going a little faster over each hill. Finally, as I crested one hill, at about 60 mph or so (yeah, it was too fast...but I was having fun), I noticed a large rock, right in the middle of the trail and there was no way to avoid it.

My front wheel went over it but when the back wheel hit, the impact sent the back end of my bike up in the air and I was doing a “front-end wheelie.” And all I could see around me was TREES !

After a traumatic experience, it seems easier to analyze a situation and this is no different. Although everything in an accident happens quickly...we still remember thinking certain things as the accident unfolds. I was thinking – “I’m heading toward the trees…at a fast rate of speed…on the front wheel…and I’ve got to get this bike laid down before I hit the trees.”

The next thing I remember, was a feeling of floating, being amongst the branches of a pine tree and looking down on the scene below. There was a person and a motorcycle but I didn’t really connect that scene with me being a part of it. I believe the reason I didn’t make that connection was that I was too overwhelmed by the other sensations that were occurring at the same time.

While I was “floating” in this configuration, I had a very intense feeling of warmth, love and caring and it took me about 18 years to put the whole thing together and to be able to tell the story at this time. The best way to describe the feeling that I have found is to …first, imagine the feeling of being in a large bathtub...large enough to be able to float and not touch any of the sides. Second, make the water a very comforting and pleasurable temperature so that the warmth encompasses the entire body.

Next, remember the feeling of the love and security and protectfulness that you felt as a child...when you would crawl up into your mother or father’s lap and they would put their big arms around you and you knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that you were safe and absolutely nothing could ever hurt or bother you as long as you were in their care. Add to that, the feeling of the warmth and brightness of the sun shining down on you in the same way it does in the Spring after a long, cold, desolate Winter. It’s the same brightness and warmth that lets you know that the cold of Winter is over and the promise of warmth and the rejuvenation of the life of nature has come and soon the trees will have leaves, the flowers will bloom, the birds will chirp and all will be right with the world.

Next…take all of these feelings and sensations and multiply them a thousand times and you will have an idea of the feelings I had at the time. In later years, when I read in the Bible about the “indescribable” feelings or immeasurable pleasures of heaven, I now have a semblance of an idea of what they mean.

I have no idea of the amount of real “earth-time” that went by while I was taking part in this occurrence. There was no feeling of time and there was no feeling of urgency to go forward or backward or to feel that it was only a temporary situation. There was, in my instance, no feeling of being told specifically, that this was true or that was true. Rather, there was more of a commonsensical feeling that…of course there is a God…of course there is Jesus…of course God’s Word is the absolute Truth and of course……life goes on….there is another life and world beyond the one on Earth as we know it. However commonsensical all this was though….I still didn’t...at this particular time….feel that I had died or left my physical body. It just all felt like this was the way things should be.

As quickly as all of these events had happened, the next was even faster. What I remember was a feeling of opening my eyes and at the same time...feeling trapped and having a great weight pushing down on me….and I was trying to hold that weight up.

Actually…….I was laying on my back…my crash helmet still strapped to my head, but now it was wedged between 3 small trees and the front wheel of my motorcycle. I could not pull free from the helmet or the trees ! The great weight was my motorcycle…approximately 275 pounds worth…that was laying sideways across my body. The reason I was trying to hold it up…other than the obvious reason…was that the exhaust pipe coming out the front of the engine…was hot and was laying on my neck and burning it. In fact, I still have the scar from that.

It was about this time that I realized I had a little problem. I was stuck…the bike had me pinned down like a sumo-wrestler...and the exhaust pipe kept burning me every time my arms weakened and allowed the bike down on me. Also, I knew that I was off the trail in the woods, but I didn’t know how far out I was. Could I be seen? Would anyone come by to help? How long could I keep going like this?

The sound of another vehicle brought me back to reality. It was another motorcycle! Of course…it was Gene. He had been behind me, and now…this short time later, he was coming up the trail.

All of a sudden, panic started to set in. Would Gene hit the same rock that I did? Would he be able to see me….wherever I was…out in these trees? If he didn’t see me, how much farther up the trail would he continue and how long, if ever, would it take for him to come back and find me? And…how long could I continue to bench-press this darn motorcycle?

Well, what happened next must have been a sight to behold. Since I wasn’t sure how far off the trail I was, and not being able to yell or wave my arms…the only thing left was to raise my one...fairly free leg and wave my foot in the air with the hope that Gene would see it.

I needn’t have worried as my guardian angels were still by my side. He saw me alright...but, what he saw was a very different scene (as he told me later). What he saw was one of a rider and a motorcycle, crashed on the side of the trail…and he figured I was dead and my leg just twitching like a frog because of nerves and muscles.

Gene didn’t even come to a complete stop…he just kinda threw his motorcycle down and jumped off while it was still moving and started running in my direction. It must have looked like a rodeo cowboy jumping off his horse to bulldog a calf or something!!

When he got to me, I assured him I wasn’t dead….but would certainly appreciate some help getting out of my predicament. Gene did help and by the grace of God (and I mean exactly that!) I got up and we surveyed the damage.

The motorcycle I was riding was a Husqvarna. It was an excellent machine, made in Sweden of only the best materials like special chromemolybdenum steel for the frame, swingarm and handlebars. This was not the more common mild steel found in most bikes at the time. Huskys were state-of-the-art dirt bikes, known for handling and power and I am convinced that had I been on anything less, I and the bike would have sustained much more damage.

As it was, the swingarm was bent, one shock absorber had been compressed so hard and fast that it popped the spring-keepers off the top of the shock. The chain was off the sprocket and the handlebars were bent off center about 4 inches…most probably by my arms and body.

A week or so later, in a futile attempt to straighten the swingarm (bent by a tree) I had it in a 10 ton press and couldn’t bend it until I had heated it to a cherry-red first!

After Gene and I had picked up the pieces, got the chain back on, etc., I was able to ride...although very slowly and just barely, back to camp and after he had helped me load the bike in the back of my pickup, I said goodbye and began the 100 or so mile trip back home.

It was about halfway home that the tightness began to set into my neck and back…and the rest of my body didn’t feel like it wanted to dance either! Once home though, I took a hot bath and went to bed. My father had been seeing a guy (a physical-culturist, he called himself) for his back and I went along one day the next week to get a “treatment”. I found that I had compressed my spine and my neck wasn’t in very good shape either. However, after about 2 weeks of “sessions”, I was back playing ball, riding my motorcycle and planning for the next race.

Once again, I’m sure my guardian angels were at work and this special “physical-culturist” was here for a reason. The rest of the summer was pretty uneventful in comparison and it was 6 months or more before I really thought much about the experience that I had gone through. Then, little by little, things started to fall in place and I remembered things even though I didn’t always understand them. In fact, it was probably a year or more before the full impact of what had happened really sank in.