Face to Force

It was the middle of February 1978. The weather was a little unusual this winter as it was not as cold as the previous winters that I had encountered in my young age. Like usual it was a sunny month, as it is for most months in southern Alberta, but this winter month the air had a grey tinge to it. The wind blew like always, but even it had some other indescribable feeling to it.

As a twelve year old boy, and like many, I too loved hockey, skating, sledding, and just messing around in the winters. Besides playing I always enjoyed helping and working around the house with my father. He always had some project on the go, if not many at once. This month my father was making two new bedrooms in the basement. We needed them as it was two of us kids to each one of the three bedrooms upstairs. These rooms in the basement were being made for my two older brothers, Duane and Perry. I was fairly excited because I would now get my own room upstairs. Brian, the third oldest would now get his own, and my two younger sisters Cindy and Leanne would still be sharing theirs.

The basement was mostly storage and also housed the old rickety ancient furnace. This furnace was huge, loud, and made so many clunky sounds it needed to go, and there was a plan for it too. The basement was in rough shape. It was still much like it was when the house was built in 1901. It was all concrete with long high shelves of the same that ran around and out to the foundation. They were dirty, full of eighty years of dust, spider webs, some dead rodents way off to the back side and who knows what else. I don’t think they were ever cleaned off completely.

In the previous year my father, and of course with the help of us six kids, had dug out a portion of the concrete floor to add more head space. My father did most of the digging and the busting apart of the concrete floor. It was the six of us kids that were enlisted to remove the concrete and the dirt. We had to wheelbarrow it up the old worn cement stairs that had a makeshift ramp laid on them that ran up and out to the outside. There we piled it up in the back yard for future removal. The plan was to also make a sitting and game room in this portion of the basement.

I always enjoyed doing projects around the house with my father. I idolized and admired him. I also loved to go to his work site or to work with him at his shop. I enjoyed working with tools and learning whatever I could. He knew I enjoyed our time together, and I knew he liked to have me around too. Though my father, and I am sure like many, thought their kids were lazy from time to time. He knew I was not lazy and always liked helping. I did do half assed jobs while working in the yard, but when it came to construction I always enjoyed taking part.

On this project while helping out, things seemed a little different. I never felt normal and I did not know why. Somehow I was falling out of control. I would find myself feeling unusually weak and lethargic. Every day and every moment became a little slower and slower. I didn't realize just how tired I was. I could feel it all happening, but at the same time my usual drive felt intact. I did not have the flu or a fever, but certainly I was in no control. I seemed to be in auto pilot with a sputtering engine. Every day got worse, and every motion felt like there was a drag on it. I couldn’t quit, nor even explain I was not well, my father wouldn’t have heard it.

Like usual on all jobs with my father, my name was Gopher. You know - go for this, go for that. I was constantly up and down the twelve or so much worn out old oak rickety and creaky wooden stairs. Fetching materials for my father was my duty. Most of the materials were kept upstairs in the kitchen. After days of working, gathering and fetching, I really began to feel burnt out and I fatigued quicker. Gradually over those days my father also got angrier and angrier. My father was demanding and when he wanted something it had to be now and not with delay. He yelled and bellowed at me, as he did all too well. Every day he yelled more often, with words like, "Move it, move faster, you damn kids are so goddamn lazy!” I would hear this at least five times a day. My father was a hard worker himself. He was an electrician by trade and a foreman of a fairly large crew. Well, I just kept on going like a slow motion robot, listening to him and watching his anger grow, but I wasn’t able to process his words or anger into motivation. All I could feel was tiredness, the willingness to move but being unable to move well. He yelled and demanded and I just could not commit, and my heart was breaking.

On the last day that I was his Gopher climbing up those stairs, I knew that my father was so frustrated that anything could happen. He kept on yelling and demanding more and more. "Aw come on, come on damn it, what the fuck is wrong with you kids!" This time I was three quarters of the way up the stairs and out of gas. I stopped and collapsed, kneeling and laying my upper body on the stairs. I just needed to fill up, to rest, to stop everything. He never clued in and kept up the bellowing, “What’s wrong with you, what the fuck is wrong with you?” I could hear him getting close; I could feel his aura, his dominating angry power. Now I knew I was in trouble. I knew that if he was coming up behind me yelling at the top of his lungs that I was in for it. He approached the stairs as he was yelling and yelling, "You damn kids are so goddamn lazy!” He yelled Again and again. “You damn kids are so goddamn lazy!” My father was certainly heavy handed from time to time, and this time he was as mad as a dog with rabies. Everything for me was in delayed action, from motion, to seeing, to hearing. Fearing my father’s wrath as it was all happening with a sense of distance and warped time. Now I was in the real land of disbelief. How could he be so mad at me? I was doing nothing wrong.

Then the shit hit the fan. It was like he was frantically rabid. I felt the rumble of his next two or three steps near me and saw in my side vision that he was right behind me. As he was yelling, and so visibly angry, I watched him reach out and then swing his massive hand towards my backside. Then I felt his hand striking me. He smacked my ass so hard that I flew up the next three or four stairs. I could feel him and hear him trembling in pure rage. This was the land of disbelief, and it is real, and time does stop. This is what I felt and tried not to recognize it. Now I knew I was in a different place and what was would never be again. My life changed from that moment on.

I laid there at the top of stairs in some sort of shock with the feeling of being stunted and abandoned. I lay there feeling that all hell had invaded my personal space and I looked up to see mother’s face. At first her expression was one where she thought that maybe I deserved this; then it quickly changed to one where she thought that maybe something might be wrong with me. I felt that I had next to no energy left, I was drained, I had little life or fuel left. All I knew was that I just needed to fill up somehow, and then I collapsed flat out on those stairs.

By now my mother wises up a bit more and starts to think that something must be going on with me that had nothing to do with me being lazy. She was now freaking out at my father to help her get me to the couch. They got me into the living room and they laid me out on the couch. Now fully concerned, she switched her mode to pampering and taking care of me for the rest of night. She would feel my head, look deeply at me and ask continuously of what I was feeling. I never had a lot to say, I never felt like I should say anything, or even could. As I lay there my world was crashing in on me. I wondered what was going on, and I wondered, what kind of man was my father? Of course no one knew what was happening with me, well no one on this earth anyway.

I grew weaker and weaker all night. My mother became more concerned every hour. My father had some concern, but went on as though nothing much was going on and that I would get over it. As the next day came along it was evident to my mother that I needed to be seen by a doctor. She helped me get ready and then out of the house into our large Ford station wagon. She drove me to the Campbell Clinic and I got in to see our family doctor straight away, his name was Dr. Habberman. He had been my doctor all of my life and he checked me out quite well. After a while, and a full examination, he diagnosed me with pneumonia as I was quite susceptible to it. He told us to go home, rest and get lots of fluids, and this is what we did.

Well, it's the 70s, fast foods and packaged juice drinks that you just add water to. The drink of choice was grape Quench. Eight of us in the family and Quench is a lot cheaper than milk, better tasting than water, and we drank a lot of it. I never began to feel better and it was a little strange because it never felt like any pneumonia that I had previously experienced. Who knew what, but I was getting worse. I was laid out on the couch all day drinking grape Quench.

After three days and a lot of fluids I continued to get worse. I was having the hardest time to even hold up my head by now. On that third day my mother started to get into panic mode and we were back at the doctors first thing in the morning. This time Dr. Habberman took one look at me and said, “I will meet you at the hospital.” We got back into the wagon, and just as my mom closed my door I fell out of consciousness. I woke a few minutes later to see the ER staff. There were a few of them gathered around, all busy working on getting me out of the car. My mother was in tears and panicking and a couple of staff were consoling her. I knew I was going down, and this was it, and life was ending. Everything was becoming blurrier. As I looked out into the world, everybody and everything blended together. It was as if my soul was searching for a home but kept on turning back inside of me. The reality was of my being. Being me was real, but the reality of me living in my body was not.

As they placed me on a gurney outside of the car, I once again blacked out. I was transported straight up to a room where I woke one more time just as they were placing me on a bed. One nurse was taking off my underwear. I quickly resisted and got nowhere. Another was laying me down to the bed and that resisting would be my last thrust of strength.

It seemed that from when I lost consciousness I immediately fell deep into time. I was also hearing a voice. It may have been one of the nurses or maybe the voice of an angle of peace. Everything in my perception was whitened and I sensed myself in this white frosty mist. With my eyes closed this filled my inner vision. I heard, “It is okay, you will be fine, you’re going to be fine.” Then boom - I was gone.

For what and where was I heading? What was it that was holding my hand and my soul on this day in mid February of 1978? From the moment I fell unconscious in that hospital I also became aware that I was in some sort of travel. What were the spins, twists, and slides that I was going through? Then with in a blink of an eye I found myself in a fog, in a distant land, a tunnel of bliss and illuminated whiteness. I hovered through this at what seemed to be varied speeds, twisting and turning without any fight at all.

Everything just rolled into one, all sound, views and thoughts. It was not as if I looked around or was able to move. I was still in transport. All that was and all that is engulfed my vision. It was as if my mind’s capability of seeing was multi times plus multi layered and could process all angles and views as one. I can only describe this place as a tunnel of all life, like the inside of the oesophagus of all time. I call it an oesophagus because man this thing was alive, and had the look of the inside of an oesophagus. It was a power and force that was so immense and it seemed expandable.

Then I suddenly became fully aware and found myself at rest. Now I knew that I was standing with my backside against the inside wall of this oesophagus. I was about a third of the way down from a bright mouth, or the end, or let’s say the illuminated opening of this all powerful oesophagus. All at the same time that this became apparent, so did this other view; there I was looking over myself. I could see myself laid out on a hospital bed with my family all nearby. My father was sitting in a chair by me and my mother was in tears standing over me. I could see this, I watched this. I watched certain family members, my sisters and brothers come and go, but my mother stayed right there, and always with tears.

It was an unknown circumstance and place to me. This was not even imaginable by me. I started to fear loss, the loss of everything I ever knew. At first I felt so vulnerable, scared, and so alone. Then a fuller picture emerged and flooded me. It was of pure white luminescence that came from one end of this oesophagus that was on my right side. It illuminated the whole end, and it seemed like it got fuller and more blissful if you were to go through it and walked off the end. It had my full attention and then some. This incredible white light illuminated the inside of this immense tunnel from one end to the other. The other end though was no place to go to. This was a dark end. The light never shone through it, and barely to it. I only acknowledged that end once or twice. It's hard to say, but I do believe that I saw souls hovering and floating out of it. The fear that I felt from that end was greater than I had ever known, and still know to this day.

I was taking this all in, did I have a choice? I think not. I was trembling and shaking. This tunnel was not a tunnel. Like I said, it was the oesophagus of all life. The inside walls were ribbed all around with large ribs that were glowing with florescence. It was certainly alive. It's very hard to describe this. Over to my right it was like a larger than all life head of a beast pouring out from the illuminated end of the oesophagus. It was a force larger than all infinity itself. The power that poured out of it was of colossal awesomeness. This power is what I have come to call the Force. It was so colossal and it shape shifted in size and configurations. It’s as if it was made up of all the heads of all beings. This Force is all knowledge and wisdom of the entire universe. This was known without a question. It illuminated of many colours, but largely of whiteness, silvers, and blues. It zinged, zapped and crackled like lightening with pure electricity and luminescence. I felt plugged into it and that it was feeding me my life. I stood there as it filled my sights, my visions and my mind, and I never moved at all.

I could see its body from the head outwards through the end of this tunnel. It lined the whole right side of the illuminated opening to what seemed and felt to be this place of no time. From the head back it laid out as immense as all the mountain ranges on earth and throughout the universe that you could ever imagine all put together. This was the body, and there was no end to see. It was pure electricity made up of every colour of light. It glowed and illuminated of silvers, whites and blues. This light and power crackled off and out of it like lightening. It crackled, flared and zapped all over on it and from it. It was jagged, bumpy and hilly with mounds of brightness, florescence and illuminated pastels and neon, with all the colours of light. It was not still. It squiggled, vibrated up and down and side to side like one hell of a colossal slinky. This Force is filled with pure electricity, pure force, perhaps life of all life, and here I was, face to Force.

Trembling and scared, but feeling a bit more at ease. There was another vision that was straight in front of me. Like a window, but with no window. I could now acknowledge the other scene clearly. My mother was crying endlessly over me. My father was very concerned and would be sitting next to me. Others in my immediate family were in and out constantly, and so were my grandparents and relatives too. It was not like a second to second account, though rather the whole account all at once. I could see myself in that hospital bed with three intravenous lines coming out of me. I witnessed all of this as if it was all one time and as if there is no time. To see this view and take in this Force at the same time was extraordinary.

Then I began to hear some form of words, or sounds, and what seemed to be laughter too, and it was coming from the Force. These words had great power and they had full penetration to my soul. They came at me with large crackling and thunder-like energy. I would begin to understand that I could go back and be with my family if that's what I wished. That if I choose to go back that I would stick it out, but not without hell, that I would not live without great hardship. I was warned of great difficulties and that nothing would be easy. I was told that if I make it through a long period of hell on this earth that I would become what I am to be.

The Force also let me know that I could just accept it and to come on in. I was welcomed to enter its light energy and everything would be okay, that all would be fine. It was all bliss, it was of no time. This was reiterated that I had the choice to stay or go, and always with laughter, with heavy thrusting laughter. What the Force said to me was, “You can come back any time; this is your home.” I would hear this over and over again during those three days. It seemed as if all the Force needed was an okay from me either way. As I stood there for the entire time with tears and fear of loss, I had to make a decision. I was constantly with the question to stay or go, and always with laughter.

The scene in the hospital grew and grew. I saw my favourite uncle. My uncle Ray brings me a Seattle Mariners ball hat. They were one of my favoured teams in those days. He was saying, “Come on kiddo, wake up and we will go to a ball game together.” I was still seeing my mother in tears, my father pacing, sitting and pacing. My sisters were crying a little and all three of my brothers were in deep thought of me and wishing for me to pull through. My grandparents came up often and brought me a bouquet of flowers. Each one of them would always lean in to me wishing me well. My grandfather would tell me that he needs a fishing partner this summer and I was it. The doctors were in and out like a swarm of bees pollinating a flower. None of them thought I was going to pull through. In fact they had told my parents to prepare for the worst.

I did feel at peace, but I had to make a choice as I was being pushed by the Force. I so wanted to enter this light, I knew it was probably the best choice. It felt like the smartest choice to make, that’s if I only thought of myself. As I watched my mother cry and cry I could not take it. With great trembles and rushing energy I started to make the choice. I knew I had to choose my mother; I just could not hurt her. Now feeling this thrusting energy of laughter, electricity, and power of the Force, I knew there was no turning back. The exchange started to take place. Just as quickly as I slipped into this coma, I started to wake a little. Yeah! Crazy huh?! Three days gone and the doctors never thought that I would come out of this coma. They told my parents that even if I did come out there may be permanent damage.

As I woke and opened my eyes, I was squinting at two doctors standing by me. I barely looked at one white coat as he says to me, “Welcome back, you’re a type one diabetic like your brother Perry.” I looked at one arm that had two intervenes lines coming out of it, and then saw that the other arm had one. I also noticed off to the side a small table that had a bouquet of flowers and a Seattle Mariners ball cap on it. Then just as fast, I was out again.

I don’t know, maybe I thought, “Hey Force I'm coming back”. But I can’t tell you that I saw anything then. About twelve hours later I woke again with the doctors and my parents by my side. Everybody was happy; the docs told me how lucky I was. My mother smothered me, and my father was of course quite relieved.

After a night’s sleep I woke the next day to a nurse who set a syringe and a needle on the table next to me. I asked her, “What is that for?” She replied, “When you’re ready, you can start practicing taking insulin shots on this orange.” It did not take too long; I was self administering insulin the day after.

We were told that my blood sugar reached 116, one of the highest recorded at that time. I was declared a brittle diabetic. I spent a month in the hospital with a whole lot of reflection and wonderment. It was near death for me, face to Force, an experience that will always be.

I asked my mother what had gone on. She told me that she cried for days and that she was devastated. I asked who came to see me. She told me that many of my family, my grandparents and other uncles and aunts came to see me. I said then that I could see her crying, and the others, but never talked much of my experience. I am not sure why I never did, but I think it took a long time for me to absorb and to come to grips of what took place. I did mention that I was in some sort of a place with a lot of bright light. I still don’t know why my parents never asked me much about it either. I did try a little to explain where I had been, but it was pretty tough. I did certainly hear how worried everyone was.

I was in a state of awe and confusion for a long time. Still am today. The thing was that I used to watch Perry take his insulin every morning for a year or two. He used a glass syringe and to him it was some sort of luxury. To me it looked kind of cool, and in a way I wondered what it was like. I even fantasized some of using it. Was this a sort of psychosomatic condition? Perry was an influence on me, some good, and some not so good.

Change comes with or without direct cause of your own actions, but can change happen by thought alone? I think it can, and does. We can think and imagine things that we would like to see come about whether positive or negative. If you are in the correct zone it can happen just as you see it. It's Imagineering. If you are not in the correct zone then all sorts of variables are at play, and certainly ones that are not of your choice or imagination. But what is it that opens and closes doors, and how does one foresee that? Is it that our path is laid out for us? Or do we make our own destiny as we grow? In this, is the order kept, as we are cogs in the wheel of the order? Are we guided to fulfill our role, our destiny? So do we have control of our choices? Do we have control of who we are and what we become? Are we at least 50% of who we are, hardwired at birth? In order for us to fulfill the order do we go through this earth schooling and become our planned destiny? Interesting thing is is that life goes on no matter what, but it does advance or perhaps decline in so many ways as it goes on.

What does take place during the ascension of death? What is, what I have named the Force, this light, this immense illuminated energy, this electric Force? Is it A Force, as in one of them, or The Force? Or is this the one God and the gate into what has been described to be heaven? Are we turned back if our role is not complete? Do we just live long enough to fulfill our role? At death, do we all pass through this oesophagus? Do only some of us get a chance in any way to decide if we are ready or not? Does that dark end represent rejection? Nonetheless, it is illumination and an electrical field like no other, and it certainly interacts with us. Just because you cannot see it, does not mean it does not exist.

It was not till twenty-five years later and thanks to the internet that I came across a description of this tunnel. It has been painted and documented throughout the last hundreds of years. I have seen a few paintings and drawings that are very close to what I witnessed, though there is little description of what I call the Force.

An interesting fact was that I suffered extreme asthma from the age of two till this episode. It had just been a few months since my last bad asthma attack, and that would have been my last asthma attack. For whatever change was instilled in me, I believe it was to keep me alive. Asthma was probable to end my life short. I suffered severely with it. I had been saved perhaps. Was this an intervention? I have never suffered asthma since. Whatever happened and has taken place, I have not lived this life without hell. It’s been forty years since this encounter. I do believe that my good days are on the way!

Kozz @ November 13, 2019