The first thing I saw was a nurse’s face. It was right over me, only a few inches away. Her mouth was moving – she was yelling.
‘Do you know where you are? Do you know what day it is?’
I looked to my left, and I saw my mother, her face wet with tears.
‘Crystal!’ the nurse screamed. ‘Do you know where you are? Tell me where you are.’
I heard her questions clearly, but I didn’t answer right away. It was almost like talking was something foreign to me. I had just come from a place where there was no need to talk. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. The yelling continued. I tried again. Finally, I found the words.
‘I am in the most beautiful light,’ I mumbled. ‘I am with God.’
And then I closed my eyes, so I could make my way back to heaven.
The nurse yelled again.
‘Crystal, I need you to look at me! What are your children’s names?’
I opened my eyes, and I tried to say my kids’ names. I said Payne and Sabyre but couldn’t come up with Willow and Micah, and that really frustrated me. And anyway it wasn’t what I wanted to talk about.
I turned to my mother this time, and I said, ‘It’s okay. I’m in the most beautiful light. I am with God.’
‘I know, I know,’ my mother said, ‘but I need you to get back here with me.’
But I had no intention of staying. I closed my eyes again and tried to go back, but for some reason I couldn’t. It was like there was a blockage. I felt like all these people yelling at me were literally separating my spirit from heaven. I was frustrated. The nurses kept asking me questions, and I tried to answer them quickly so I could get back to heaven. I kept trying and trying to go, but I just couldn’t.
And then I heard a man’s voice. I opened my eyes and saw a doctor holding a syringe.
‘Crystal, I’m going to give you a shot,’ he said. ‘On a pain scale of 1 to 10, this is going to be a 10.’
He leaned in and poked the needle into my arm. Instantly I felt my jaw clamp down and every muscle in my body clench tight. The pain followed after that. It was a great, surging pain that swept through my body, building and building and consuming me. It was almost as if I could hear the pain – like a gigantic freight train rumbling through my body, getting closer, going faster, intensifying, tearing me apart.
‘It’s almost over,’ I heard the doctor say.
What was happening to me? Why was I trapped this way? ‘Once we get there, you cannot come back,’ God had communicated to me, and I understood Him … but I hadn’t passed through the gates yet, so why couldn’t I go back? ‘The choice is up to you,’ He had said. The choice had been mine! As the pain tore through me I closed my eyes tightly, and I tried desperately to escape and to somehow, somehow, make my way to heaven.
But by then I think I already knew I wasn’t going back.