Young Roots
Second Life
By Johanne Macob
BEFORE everyone in our family started with our annual Easter Egg hunt, I found myself ‘lost’ for a moment.
It was 11 a.m., an hour after arriving in one of our favorite resorts where my nephews’ and nieces’ love to swim and everyone’s choice love for family outing. We selected the best cottage and we immediately began unpacking our ‘baon.’ My sister was reopening food keepers, my brother-in-law was doing the barbecue. The kids were already enjoying themselves in the water. Everyone was doing something, I was peeling and slicing green mangoes for ‘ensalada.’ I was doing good despite the absence of a chopping board, or at least, with the first few pieces. As I was doing the last one, I accidentally hit one of my fingers with the knife. To cut the story short, I cut my finger open.
The blood flowed profusely from my left hand’s fingers. I never saw myself bleed that much from a wound. I frantically tried to stop the bleeding until I felt dizzy perhaps it was because I am anemic and I’ve stayed too late the past nights before April 5th.
Then my sight blacked out, and my body felt cold. Then it felt as if I was having an epileptic seizure. I stiffened and couldn’t open my eyes. I struggled to open my eyes to look at my sister, who stayed with me the whole time and who at the time was already calling out for help to get me to the car in order to be brought to the hospital.
And as if I was in another dimension that only I could see, images and pictures of and my loved ones came flashing. I saw my own childhood pictures. I took a glimpse of the pictures. Everything was surreal as I caught a view of me and my alter ego. But all these pictures and images went past me really fast along with sounds I couldn’t discern. I felt myself struggling to leave that space, to reopen my eyes until suddenly I heard my sister calling out my name. Finally, I understood a sound and managed to open my eyes again.
I never thought scenes and memories like those would come to me like a quick flashback, a situation that I thought only happened in the movies… happening to someone half-dead and half-awake. I didn’t know you could actually ‘die’ for a minute. I have heard of stories from friends about others who left their physical bodies while their souls traveled. But, with my case, it was different. I didn’t feel like I’ve left my body. I just felt I was refusing to leave my body. I was just there. I struggled to wake up my body. And I did. Now I wonder if I am on my second life… and that was when I got up a second before they could carry me into the car. I was up before everyone else started cry. I found myself in tears but it was not about my fear of dying.
But I was just happy to be back, to be able to spend more time with my loved ones. Besides, knew then I couldn’t have made it without them and God’s love. Perhaps, I still have a purpose here on earth. I could never be more thankful. So yes, I got up and we enjoyed the rest of the day, and the days that followed. Carpe diem!
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