Transcript
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From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes.
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They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped.
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And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my
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physical body because I was somewhere else.
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The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't
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anything else to be felt.
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I was greeted by people I'd known in the past.
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I'm back home again.
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Incredibly safe and felt at home.
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Welcome to a bonus episode of Roundtrip Death, everybody.
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We have a great guest, Mary Jo Wheeler, coming up here in just a second.
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But I kind of wanted to preface it with the fact that some NDEs that we talk about are
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really grandiose and long and seem to be, you know, would fill a whole book.
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Others are short and very sweet and just as important as the ones that are long and, I
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don't know, would turn into a great film or something.
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So this one is a little bit shorter, but it is wonderful.
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And it was a super special experience for Mary Jo.
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So Mary Jo, welcome.
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Hi.
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Thank you for having me.
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I'm very excited to share my story.
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You're welcome.
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It is so good to have you.
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Before we jump into your story, tell me, have you talked about this much with very many
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people?
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So the first person I finally told was my mom.
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This was back in 2000, and I would say 15.
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She was the first person I told.
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And she actually was, her response was, yes.
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And I knew she was irritated with it because after it had happened, she had found my wet
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clothes on the floor.
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And we'll get into that whole thing of how that happened.
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But I was just curious, have you told a lot of people or have there been reasons you kept
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it a little more to yourself?
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I had a hard time processing it for a long time, and it took a while before I started
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getting into the spiritual side.
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My family was raised Catholic and my fiance's family are Christian.
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And so I decided to go with them and to start this church that we moved to this new town
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in and was getting to know everyone.
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It took about two years of getting to know everyone.
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And they had this private class in the church so people can talk about things that happened
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to them so that they can have a way of relieving some kind of pressure.
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Some people had different problems like addiction or something going on in their lives.
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And my topic was to talk about, you know, I understood God and that I believed in God.
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And I had personal reasons to believe that and they had asked me why and I said, well,
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because it personally happened to me.
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And I told them that I almost died and that I was saved by a voice that helped me and
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helped me survive.
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And I was looked like I was a crazy person, like I was lying.
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It makes me want to get emotional because that should be the place that you should be
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able to go when you're in trouble or you need to relieve.
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Sorry, I cannot believe I'm doing the crying, but it took a lot of toll on me for a little
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bit.
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And it wasn't until I started getting into YouTube, which is funny, that I started finding
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about other things and ions and different groups and then finding different support
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people that I was able to start talking about it and that relief of being able to talk about
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it without any judgment was absolutely freeing and doing this today is, is immense.
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Maybe that's why I'm even crying a little bit because I'm spreading a message of truth
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and love.
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And if anybody's having a bad day, just know that we're here for a reason.
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I don't know what all those entails are as the long stories are, but, you know, I got
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to find out firsthand.
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I just didn't know how to process it as a kid.
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And so I rebelled a little bit with things were going bad.
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So you know, there's a lot to process.
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All right, let's go back to when you were, you were only five years old when this happened
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to you.
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Would you tell us where you were living, what kind of conditions you were living in?
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And then we'll get into exactly what happened.
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Okay.
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Well, my mom was a single mom and she had me and my little brother living in a low-income
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housing in National City, California.
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We lived up the street from an old bowling alley called Plaza Bowl.
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It doesn't exist anymore.
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It's now a shopping center, but the apartment complex still does exist.
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Back in the day in the 70s, there was no fences around pools.
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A lot of times I remember apartment signs saying adult only complex, no children allowed
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back in the 70s in National City.
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So it was no surprise that, you know, this was going to happen about safety, about people
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and kids trying to go to a pool that doesn't have a fence and nobody's watching that something
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could happen.
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That's basically what happened to me.
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And were you a good swimmer?
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No, not really.
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My mother never learned how to swim.
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She was afraid of the water.
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And even till the day she passed in 79, she never liked the water.
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She was a panicker.
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And so if we went to the pool, it was to sit at the stairs.
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And I really wanted to swim.
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And naturally I was a fish growing up.
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I just wanted to swim all the time.
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So I had this really strong attraction to the pool.
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But you didn't know how to swim, did you?
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You hadn't had lessons?
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No.
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No lessons, no lessons at all.
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Just the pool side sitting on the stairs and playing right there by the little handle.
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That was about it as far as it went.
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That's so tempting for a child five years old just wanting to get in that water.
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Oh, yeah.
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But your mom kept you safe and kept you out of it until one night.
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Well, it happened early in the morning.
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My mom and my little brother were asleep because obviously it was still like maybe about two
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ish or so.
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I had gotten up early in the morning and I had this extreme, I don't know what I was
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dreaming about or what the case was, but I had this extreme desire to get to that pool.
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And so I had downstairs by myself in my apartment and I just went, climbed up the stair or not
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the stairs, the couch, and I undid the lock, the chain lock off the top of the door on
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the top right.
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And I snuck outside.
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When I snuck outside, I just ran across our parking lot and then across the way into the
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grass and then there's the pool across the way.
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And I just got into the stairs, sat onto the stairs, grabbed the wall.
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And I was a shimming across the way just around the whole thing because I wanted to see the
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deep end.
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And this is just crazy, but I wanted to see the deep end.
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I wanted to feel that.
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And so when I got there and looking down and I'm putting my feet up against the wall and
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pushing back and looking around, I let go.
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And I just went down to the bottom and kids sink.
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We don't because we have a lot of fat.
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So we're never really going to be able to sink to the bottom like kids do.
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And that's exactly what happened.
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I was literally standing at the bottom of the pool and I'm looking up.
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You could see the smoothest of the wall.
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I could see how it's curving up and I'm looking up around up above me and I'm seeing sparkly,
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but that could have been because of the light and the sun because it's early morning.
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But I see things shining through.
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And then all of a sudden I'm not able to breathe anymore and I'm starting to get ready to panic.
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And then all of a sudden I felt this staticky.
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I wasn't sure if it was because I was standing at the deep end, but I felt this static, staticky
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noises in my head.
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And then all of a sudden this voice took over my entire head talking to me underwater.
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And I feel something behind me on my left.
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It felt really huge.
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I'm almost kind of scared of it because I felt like it was something and I didn't know
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what to think.
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But I remember feeling like it had bent down over me to kind of comfort me and he had his
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right hand on my shoulder and he was leaning over to me to comfort and the voice says to
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me, okay, Mary Jo, this is what I need you to do for me.
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Can you jump for me?
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And without hesitation, I just agreed with it and I started jumping.
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And when I was with this being, I felt no more pain.
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I wasn't dying for air.
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I wasn't cold because the water was freezing.
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I don't know anything about time or what had happened in that moment, in that time at
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place.
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But I was with this being and I was jumping and doing what it told me.
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And I could feel this swishing happening as I'm jumping.
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I would feel this swishing and the voice was male, but yet it transcended with a female
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voice as well.
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I don't know if it was to make me calm or if this is the way it spoke.
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I think there's a couple of stories that I will talk about later that kind of resonated
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with me, but I kept telling me to jump and I would do what it said.
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And for some reason I knew that it was telling me I'm going over, I'm taking you across the
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shallow and I kind of automatically bosses.
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That's where I was going.
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And as I was jumping with it, the sooner or the closer we got to the shallow side, my
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head would pop out of water.
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And right before I had my head pop, that's when the urge was coming that I needed to
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breathe.
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Like that's when all the pain was coming through so that I would jump and then my head hit
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for air for just a second.
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I got a quick breath before I went back under and I kept jumping.
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And that's basically by the time I got to the stairs, I was jumping and getting air,
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you know, underwater until I got to the stairs.
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And by the time I got to the stairs, the voice was very stern, like a father.
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And this said to me, now, Mary Jo, don't ever do this again.
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Now you go home.
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And that was it.
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I ran.
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I ran.
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I didn't look back.
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Maybe I could have saw something.
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I didn't want to.
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Just a little girl.
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I think the voice did to scare me because I was in trouble because they knew I had snuck
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out of the house.
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And my mother didn't know how to swim.
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My mother was asleep with my brother.
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So if she would have found me passed away, she would have probably drowned herself trying
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to go and get me.
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So there's like all of this knowledge that's coming in through the years that I was trying
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to process.
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So that's basically it.
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That's my whole story.
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But the knowing of those things at that young age was like a lesson learned, basically.
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Okay.
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I feel like I need to take a breath.
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I've been holding my breath.
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Yeah.
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Kind of been holding my breath through this.
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Oh, wow.
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Parents' worst nightmare.
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Do you remember feeling fear and you were scared or?
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I was scared because the voice felt like powerful.
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I don't know how to explain it, but I just remember when I heard this, the whole voice
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like taking over my head, like I just interrupted the day, something going on.
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And the voice was so stern.
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It scared me a little bit.
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I didn't know if it was the scare because it felt like a ball powerful or if it felt,
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but I was scared of it for a second.
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And I think maybe the female voice intertwining was to keep him calm.
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And so that's all I really can say.
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I just...
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That makes sense.
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And maybe it needed to be firm enough that you didn't try that again.
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Didn't think that was fun.
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Oh, yeah.
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I was in trouble with the father for sure.
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I really felt that because it's just as a little girl, you're filling all of these overwhelming
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feelings that I'm learning a lesson at a young age of knowing all of the things that
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could have happened.
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Did you say that you felt something on your shoulder?
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You said you felt like someone was on the right hand side.
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Right.
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So if I was facing my back and the person's behind me on my left, it was like they were
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comforting me, comforting me, touching my shoulder, telling me, okay, Mary Jo, this is what we're
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going to do.
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Like just basically taking over is what I felt.
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But you still had to do your part and do the jumping that you were told to do.
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I had to do the free will of jumping.
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I think it had a lot to do with that.
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I mean, it wasn't like I was trying to commit suicide or I literally was just trying to
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learn something.
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I really wanted to go swimming.
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That's all I really wanted to do.
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And then the innocence of that and then the fact that I could have just killed myself
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by going in the water without your parents or somebody there.
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I mean, I literally was in that pool all by myself early in the morning.
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So it's just very lucky, very blessed, very lucky.
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It's a terrifying thought.
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It was hard to process.
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I remember even thinking about aliens for a while, just not knowing how to process this
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or when my mother confronted me when I was a little girl about the wet clothes.
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I could imagine, you know, that I was scared to even tell her what happened.
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I mean, I knew I was in trouble.
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I knew it, but...
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Yeah.
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Did you make something up?
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She dropped it.
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She just kind of got disgusted at me because she knew I had went to the pool.
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I think my mom was just going through such a hard time that, you know, everything's okay.
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I'm just, I'm going to move on with what I was doing kind of thing.
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But it wasn't until I got older and, you know, here I am as a grown woman, a grandmother
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myself and having this heart to heart talk with my mom just finally coming clean about
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it.
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Yeah.
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I think that's that.
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When did you have this heart to heart with your mom?
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My mom had been sick for a while and I know she was really stressing on a lot of things
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before she had passed away.
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She just passed away April 23, 2023.
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So we've been kind of, you know, getting ready for things.
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And I just wanted to comfort my mom, but I also wanted to come clean, I guess, to tell
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her what had happened back then.
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And I just wanted to know if she remembered about the wet clothes and from my mom to be
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so disgusted because yes, I remember, you know, just like trying to tell her, well, something
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happened and I need to tell you what happened.
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And that embracement, that love that my mom gave me to say that she believed me and just
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saying that you give me comfort.
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And I said, yes, God's real.
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And she goes, I know he is.
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And I said, he's very real and there's the life after death.
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And that meant a lot that I got to tell her that because she died about two years later.
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So she had a really bad stroke and she was getting dementia.
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She was starting to lose her mobility of talking and stuff.
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So everything happens for a reason.
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It really does.
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And just having that moment with her and then I ended going to visit her one last time and
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I had her with me for three nights and we slept in the same bed and I just comforted
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my mom.
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And then I got the call later on after that that she had passed away.
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So it was important.
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It was very important to tell her that if anything.
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I tried the church because I thought, OK, you know, I'm ready for this.
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I'm ready to give my life to whatever it takes because I don't know.
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I hear stories, you know, it's not like that.
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These are manmade religions.
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But I just really felt in my heart of hearts like I'm ready to give my life to God and
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any work that I do is in his name always.
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And that's just how I've been ever since that happened.
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But the church thing kind of popped my bubble on that aspect to where it kind of shut me
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down for a second.
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I'm trying to get my voice back.
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Tell me more about that.
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Were you talking to just another member of the congregation or to some kind of a minister
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pastor?
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This is such an odd situation.
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So the lady that runs the church, she's also a realtor and she's this and she's that.
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And so it was really kind of awkward as it was kind of trying to feel comfortable to
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talk to them.
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And I waited a couple of years before I really came out.
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So I did three years, three and a half years of Bible study with them.
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But I came out about on the third year I had came out to talk about it because I thought,
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you know, we've had fellowship, we've been doing things together and, you know, going
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through this journey together.
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So I was putting my heart of heart out there when I went to this class where we're all
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talking, you know, and bringing out things so that way we can mend and move on.
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And so mine was very genuine.
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I have never, I think what hurt me the most was they were looking at me like I'm some
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fool.
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And I was just, I think that was like a dagger.
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I felt so betrayed and like they're looking me like, yeah, right, lady, now you're just
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doing this or you're just making this up.
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And I just thought, wow, I said, you know what?
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And I remember looking at them going, I swear on the souls of my very grandchildren that
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when I'm telling you is not a lie, I remember even saying that because I felt so defensive.
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Like you're looking at me like I'm a liar.
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And I just, I was just going away.
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And so I just stayed quiet talking to them for a little bit and I can tell that attitudes
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were changing the, you know, the demeanor, a lot of gossiping starting to happen and
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kind of being shunned away from the side a little bit.
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And there was this one lady that came into a Bible study after that and she says, my
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husband had a heart attack and he said he had a near death experience named Susie.
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And I wanted to say, Hey, I had believed him in home on it.
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And I got nudged like shush, like you cannot talk about this in church.
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It's inappropriate.
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I'm thinking, wow.
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So then I just lost all interest after that.
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I literally was so disgusted and you know, it just kind of felt like the people you were
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trying to make friends.
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I didn't even care if we were friends anymore.
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I just, I didn't care if I ever saw them again.
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It was just like, they, they took something so genuine for me that I just really, I just
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don't even want to talk to them.
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If I see men in store, I go the other way.
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I don't know.
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It's just, it changed something in me and I'm still trying to process that as well.
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So.
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I don't want to tell any ministers, pastors how to do their job, but I'm going to throw
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in a butt here.
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There's nothing wrong with listening.
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Just listen.
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And if someone really believes something happened to them, even if it doesn't jive with your
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faith exactly, it's okay to acknowledge it and to listen to them and let them know that
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you love them and, and it's okay to tell them, hey, I don't understand this.
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Yeah.
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Right.
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Versus telling them that it's wrong and what happened to them didn't happen.
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It really takes away from someone and I, I really think that it's really important to
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listen to people.
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You know, we hear a lot of stories all the time and I, I took my time.
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I let, I dove into Ion's website.
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I literally dove into there and read so many testimonies and, you know, looking up people
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on YouTube and getting to see and trying to be friends with these people on Facebook because
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I feel like I don't feel like I'm like, I don't belong here.
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It just feels like I'm not, I'm different from everybody else.
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But when I found these new people in my life that have had near death experiences, that
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sense of belonging, that's a very unique feeling.
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And just to have that little community of people that even if you don't talk on a daily
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basis, just that little connection means so much.
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It really does make a difference.
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So I think what you're doing is really important and it's a message and I'm willing to take
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this on regardless of what people think or the comments that might come into play about
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what I'm saying.
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It's coming from a genuine heart place and I just really want people to know and these
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days that we are in that just take comfort in knowing that there is life after death
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and that we do move on and that there's more to what we know and that they should really
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probably try to look into themselves and maybe try to make some changes.
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And I don't think that's in conflict with any religion that I know of.
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No, no.
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The fact that there is life after death.
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There is a God.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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And if it puts it all into perspective, you really want to start doing good.
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So I changed what I used to do for a living and now I take care of seniors in a senior
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park and I just had a big barbecue last just over the weekend, feeding 74 people.
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So it just kind of changes your life and all I want to do is just continue on this path
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until my end of days and I'm fine with that.
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I'm just trying to find my way through this.
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I'm trying to look into meditation right now because I feel like I need to find a special
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place to do that.
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So that's the next thing I'm going to start trying to practice myself is some meditations
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and stuff.
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On this same line of the advice that I just didn't give to religious leaders.
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Yeah.
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How about for those people and especially for parents?
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If something like this happens to your child or a small or a child that you know that has
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been through something like this and is willing to open up and tell you, how should they deal
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with it?
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What should they say to this child?
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What would have been good for you way back when you were five?
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If my mom went not a brushed off the fact that there was wet clothes and the fact that
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it was early in the morning and the fact that I went outside at the house, unlocked the
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door and went outside, I really think she should have dove in there more and asked me
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some questions because I know I would have told her.
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I would have said, well, I got saved by the voice.
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I would have told her what had happened.
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I would have been completely honest with my mom and just having even if it was 48 years
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later that I'm telling my mom the story, she asked questions and she asked me, well, did
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you even, she's asking me questions like, well, what were you doing?
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Were you in a lot of pain?
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What was happening?
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And I said, well, at first, yes, I wasn't in a lot of pain because I was needing to desperately
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breathe air.
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And I said, I was feeling like I was saying I was giving up kind of thing like, okay,
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and being a little girl and realizing you're going to die, that was kind of a different
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story too.
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I think just having comfort and love to your child, let them talk about it.
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I don't necessarily think to ever recommend taking them to a priest or anyone to talk
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about that, but just the love and comfort of a family member to talk to and maybe find
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them resources for near death experiences because I and they do have a place about children's
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death.
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So that's where I placed my story to read other children's experiences of death and
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near death experiences.
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And so I think I would recommend people look into those sources for sure.
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Well, Mary Joy, I appreciate you being on with us today.
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I know it's still not easy to talk about.
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I hope you found this a place that is safe and trusting and that you can talk and that
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it helps to talk about it.
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It really does, Eric.
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And you're the first person that I've done this story to tell you my story.
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And I cannot tell you how thankful I am to have met you, Eric, and I am grateful that
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you are taking the time to listen to me because it means the world to me.
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And I know that God will shine on you too for taking the time to do this for people.
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It means a lot.
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It really does.
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Oh, you are so sweet.
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Anything last thing that you'd like to say to everybody?
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Just keep doing good.
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Keep doing good to others.
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Try to show love.
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That's what God's all about is love.
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And if we could just take the time to stop being so angry and letting politics and everything
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else get in the way, we need to mend.
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We need to love each other and we need to find a way to respect each other.
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That's what I would say.
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Thanks again for listening and sharing this podcast.
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If you've had a roundtrip test experience, we would love to hear from you.
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Send an email to eric at roundtriptest.com.
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Until then, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.
