The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Survivor

The day my life restarted was almost perfect. It was sunny but not too bright. Warm but not too hot, humid but not suffocating-ly so. People were happy, cheerful and friendly… I think. The majority of the people were Italians who didn’t speak English and I don’t speak Italian so they may have actually been insulting me in the rudest way, oh well, I don’t know. They were smiling though, that means you’re happy right?

Anyway, earlier in the day I had eaten breakfast and then I’d changed into a blue one-piece swimming suit, an oversized purple t-shirt, and new light blue floral swimming trunks. Then

I’d grabbed a towel, sun block, a book and my I-pod; planning to spend the rest of the day at the beach across the street accompanied by my brothers, grandparents, my mother and her boyfriend. Yep, swimming, reading, and sleeping… a wonderful summer day. Half the day went as I intended. I had been swimming, snorkeling and hanging out with my younger brother Julian.

We had a lime green inner-tube thing that we had been using in the water and when we both decided to get out of the lake, my mother asked me to return it to the hotel garage that we had gotten it from. I agreed, but when I started to leave Julian protested that as we were going to be using it again, it would make more sense to store it in the room.

I argued with him but eventually escaped. I did put the inner-tube in the garage but was going up to the room to get something. As I was walking something tiny and red caught my eye. Stopping, I saw a ladybug crawling toward the middle of the street. “Oh, it might get squashed. That wouldn’t be good. Everything deserves a long life,” I thought to myself. I moved onto the edge of the road and leaned down to pick it up. Then, I heard the screech of car tires, a soft cry, and felt a moment of pain.

An instant later I knew I was dead. No, I didn’t see the light. I saw myself. I was looking down at the scene of my own death; My mother running toward my broken form, my younger brother screaming my name, begging for me to get up, random bystanders gazing, horrified, at the seen. Living, ordinary people, they all were.

I wasn’t sad, or happy, I was merely calm. I thought of the quote, “Take your dying with some seriousness. Laughing on the way to your execution is not generally understood by less-advanced life-forms, and they'll call you crazy'”. -- Messiah's Handbook: Reminders for the Advanced Soul.

I had accepted, long ago, that one day I would die. Sure, it had com earlier than I would have liked but there wasn’t anything that could change the event. My heart had stopped, my brain was slowing, my breath was gone, and my body was out of commission.

Everything seemed to be getting smaller… or maybe I was just moving away. Everything, that is, except my body. First I could see the accident, then the general area, then the town, the lake, the region, Italy, Europe, the world, the universe… my body stayed the same size, in my eyes, as it had in the first scene, though everything else didn’t. It was almost as if I was being accepted back into the matter. Returning to how I started.

But it stopped. Everything stopped moving and I was suddenly being sent back; being pulled back toward the accident. It was fast, much faster going back than it had been as I was leaving. The universe, Europe, the region the town, my body… we skipped a few steps in there. At that moment, my mother was giving me CPR and refusing to believe that I was gone. I sighed.

I had to return, for my family, if not for myself. With that decision made, I knelt down, just as I had with the ladybug, closed my eyes, and took a breath. My world went white. All I could see was white, it was like the light you see at night when it’s misty but there’s a full moon. You know? That ethereal glow.

That was all I could see. But I could hear. Quite clearly, in fact. But… normally it was quiet around me except for the beeping of monitors, or the information being exchanged was medical. There were some people that I did listen to. My visitors: Mommy, Stephen (her boyfriend), my brothers, my grandparents… my doctor.

They did many tests, examinations, shots. And then there were shadows. I could open my eyes… kind of. Half-lidded, was the best I could manage. Eventually the nurses taped my eye shut so that they didn’t dry out. That irritated me. Hello, people!!! I’m trying to wake up over here!!!

Occasionally I could “wake up” enough to communicate. Once I had woken at a time when my mother wasn’t there. I asked a nurse, “Where’s Mommy?” and was told, “She’s not real, honey. She doesn’t exist.” It wasn’t the nurses’ fault I suppose, she didn’t speak English well. But it made me panicked. I was afraid that she was right and that my mother really didn’t exist. I went back to sleep for time. When I woke up again, a short while later, I was relieved to see Mom sitting at the bedside. I spoke to her, “Mommy… you’re real!”

My breaking point of irritation with the Italian medical system was when I was listening to a chat that my mother was having with my doctor. The gist of the conversation was that dear old Doc was saying, “…She’ll either die, never wake up, or, when she does wake up she’ll have no personality… she’ll be a vegetable,” and my mom believed him.

Ok. That was their take on it… here’s mine. I already died, I freaking came back. I would wake up, the day they took me off the effing drugs that were keeping me asleep. I would have personality, damn it; life would be too boring to live without a personality. I had fallen, just as I had many times before and, just like all those other times, I would get up again.
The next time mom visited I opened my eyes, weakly, looked at her and asked, carefully, “Mommy… did I save the ladybug?”

I did.