Looking Back We Sure Had Some Fun...

Where am I? There is nothing here but whiteness. Blinding whiteness. Wasn’t I just in my car? I’m sure I was. I was in my car driving home from work. I was listening to music. How did I end up here in this emptiness?

I close my eyes and think about it for a minute, trying desperately to remember what happened and how I got out of my car. Then I see a light coming from the ground and I feel a lump growing in my throat. Do I go to it and see what it is? Finally I decide I will and I walk to the light. It’s a hole and carefully I peer over the side. I would say at this point my heart stopped beating, but I am starting to realize my heart hasn’t been beating for some time. Because through the hole in the ground I can see myself, my body lying on the ground next to my car. My hair is splayed out behind me and there is an enormous piece of metal coming out of my chest.

I back away from the hole in the ground and I realize I’m dead. I’ve been dead for some time. How long I don’t know. Probably not very long since my body is still lying outside what used to be my car. The car was nearly torn to nothing. I’m only 25 years old. My fiancé is waiting for me. How can I tell him I’m not coming home? How is he going to react?!

Where will I end up? My mother always told me I was an Angel in devil’s clothing. That my heart was right but my actions were not. She always tried and tried to bring me to church to make me understand that I made choices that would not look good in front of my final judge.

I sit, though I’m not sure where I’m sitting. There is no floor or ceiling or walls or anything. It’s just blinding whiteness. Am I alone? I’ve heard of limbo before. I thought there would be other souls here in limbo. I never thought I’d be here at 25 years old. But apparently I’ve been impaled. I peek through the hole in the “ground” once again and see that I’ve now been placed in a black plastic body bag but it’s not been zipped yet. I look around and see a great deal of people standing around and another car. A giant pickup truck and I remember what happened. I remember everything about my life.

I close my eyes and I see my mother braiding my long dark hair. “You’re so beautiful,” she told me. “My beautiful Nicolina.” How I hated my name. I would always shout how I wanted to be called something different.

I see myself some years later and I look at myself with sadness. I’m dressed now in a dark purple strapless formal evening gown. It’s my prom night. I have tears rolling down my face. My date left me standing alone outside the venue when I told him I wasn’t ready. I’d been so proud to call him my date. But looking back now I can’t remember his name. I want to reach out to the girl in the purple dress and tell her its okay. Tell her she’ll meet Daniel and he’ll love her no matter what she’s done.

Now I’m looking at a girl who’s nineteen, dark hair turned red. I had my nose pierced and I got a tattoo. But that wasn’t as bad as the cocaine I’d started using. By now I was a full blown addict. I was on the street selling my body for a fix. Selling my body for just enough to get some blow. Until my world crashed down around me.

I was arrested at 20 for cocaine possession and prostitution. I fought my arrester, fought him until he shoved me into the backseat of his car and turned his sirens on. I can’t believe that was only 5 years ago.

I’m sitting in front of my mother in my orange jumpsuit. I got three months in prison. My mother is looking at me with tears in her eyes. “Nicolina, you’ve always been an angel in devil’s clothing. Come home with me, Nicolina, come home when you’re finished here and I’ll help you.” But I roll my eyes. She doesn’t know what I know, what the prison knows. I’m pregnant. I don’t know who the father is, probably a client or maybe a dealer. If it came to that I’d sleep with anybody to get my fix.

I can see myself in a hospital bed, half sitting, supported by pillows and I’m alone. My mother is sick and can’t see me this time. There are doctors and nurses and the room is filled with chaos and I’m afraid. The doctor between my legs orders me to push with all my strength but it is so painful to do it I can hardly bear it. Then the room fills with the sound of crying and my eyes water at the sound. I don’t want this baby, I never wanted a baby. But I’ve managed to pull through a full term pregnancy and my child is not hurt by the cocaine abuse it suffered when it was conceived. The doctor looks at me and places a tiny daughter in my arms. There is a part of me that has fallen in love with this little life in my arms.

A week later I give my tiny daughter to her new mother and father. I tell them I want a closed adoption and I don’t want her to know about me. I give them a letter I wrote her detailing that I loved her in some way but I was not prepared for a child. Never prepared to be a mother when she came into my life.

I head to my mother’s home to find she’d near the end of her life. She’s dying. She was a smoker all her life and her heart is failing her. I nurse her and feed her and love her and I devote my time to her until she is comfortable and when she leaves me she whispers. “Nicolina, you are a beautiful Angel, and I will see you again my daughter. In paradise.” I kiss her forehead with tears streaming down my face and it seems the tears do not stop until well after my mother had been put underground.

I spend weeks locked in her house, and I’ve fallen back into old habits. Cocaine and alcohol and I can’t control all these emotions. When I come out again is when I meet Daniel. Daniel, my savior, my whole hearted love.

Daniel has dark hair and blue eyes. He’s tall and beautiful and he looks at my withered broken spirit and the condition of my body and he helps me into rehab. He cleans me up and he takes me in when I’m out. He tells me my past is behind me and he loves me now and forever. My beautiful Daniel.

I’m in my car. A little red car that I love. Daniel bought it for me as an anniversary gift. We’ve been together for two full years, engaged for three months. The music is loud and I’m singing along, thinking about what I’m going to make Daniel for dinner. My light is green when I get to the intersection and I drive straight through and then from the corner of my eye I catch a flash of a huge truck coming at my driver’s side. I can’t speed up but try anyways and I slam first into the car in front of me and then I’m punched from the side. My car spins around and slams head on into a pole. I can’t feel my legs and there is a huge metal pole broken through my windshield and a terrible pain below my breasts. Somebody rushes to my window and breaks it with a crowbar. I’m still conscience but the pain is dulling me. I can’t feel anything below this searing pain.

“Are you okay, miss?” asks a watery voice. I attempt to look up and all I see is a blur. Then there is a loud scream as somebody notices I’ve been impaled. My spine must be severed, there is no way it can still be intact. Please somebody call Daniel.

That’s the last thing I can remember. Now I’m here sitting in limbo waiting to stand before the God my mother wanted me to believe in. I always did believe in him. I find myself crying now, afraid I’ll live a life in hell for the choices I made. But then I’m blinded by another light. Blinded by a light from above me and down comes a figure of a man.

“Nikki,” he says. I look to him with my eyes shielded. “I’ve watched you from your first moments and I’ve known your heart, and I welcome you my child to paradise.” I stand up immediately and though the light is too great to look him in the face I know I’m talking to my mother’s God.

“I have only one request,” I ask fearfully. “Please help my beautiful Daniel get through this without pain.”

“He will be with you again,” says the figure. I smile and nod and I feel as though my skin is being torn away but it doesn’t hurt. I’m finally shedding the devil’s clothing and my wings burst out and I rise with the figure to Paradise.