Sometimes people want to know when they are going to die, or why someone else died at an early age or from tragic circumstances.  I’ve learned that we do choose when we pass away, and we may have a number of opportunities to pass and we choose whether we want to stay in a body or go “home”.

One example is my husband Dave. While we were living in Germany in 1999, the boys and I went to Missouri to visit my family. Dave stayed in Germany and had a “golf week” with his buddies. One afternoon I was laying out by my mom’s pool, all alone while my mom was at work. In my mind I was thinking, “What if Dave died in a car accident? What would the boys and I do? Where would we live? What would I do?” On and on my mind went, thinking so many tragic things about Dave passing away in a car accident! By the time my mom got home I was in a state of panic, really feeling the accident really did happen. (I did not yet know how real my psychic abilities were at that time) When my mom pulled up I asked her for her overseas long distance code to call Dave. It was an 800 number with about a 15 number code we had to put in to call Germany. I called and only got our answering machine, so I left a message asking Dave to call me. Later that evening Dave called, but he hadn’t even gotten my message, he just called. Shew! Relief! Dave was okay and my imagination had just gotten away with me.

The next morning we were drinking coffee thinking about what to do that day. The phone rings and it’s my neighbor in Germany asking to speak to me. I answer and he says, “Beth, are you sitting down?”  Oh my God!  I started shaking, my eyes bigger than silver dollars, knowing something was wrong. He said Dave had been in an accident on the way home from golfing, he’s in the hospital because he had been burned and that I should come home. Panic! Oh my God, my husband is going to die before we even get back home! We immediately go inside, get dressed and go to the airport to change our tickets. I was back in Germany less than 24 hours after the accident. There are many circumstances that happened to get me home that quickly, but I will write about that in my next post. This is about my husband choosing to stay here.

My husband was in intensive care on the burn unit for 2 weeks, then one week in a normal room. He had skin grafts, an infection on one of his donor sites, and infection in his heart catheter over 2 week’s time. I had to be completely sterile, in a gown, shoes, mask, etc, and I wasn’t allowed to touch him or anything he would touch for those two weeks. I stayed with him the entire length of visiting hours. His day nurse finally allowed me to put on a surgical gown when I would come in and take the proper steps to be 100% sterile so that I could touch him and help him. I just wanted to put a cold, wet cloth on his face and head. He looked so hot. I wanted to hug my husband!

After talking with Dave about what happened, he said his truck had rolled. It rolled from one side of the autobahn to the other side, into on coming traffic. He said as the truck was rolling, he prayed, “God, if I am going to die, just let me see Beth and the boys one more time.” When he landed, wheels down on the road, the truck caught fire. The only way out of the truck was the passenger door, but the door was locked and the automatic door locks weren’t working! So he turned sideways and kicked the door open! Fire! He ran through the fire with his arm over his face, all the while screaming. It was amazing that he screamed like that, or he would have inhaled the fire! When he got out of the fire, there was a German man standing on the side of the road waiting for him with water. So many people stopped and were pouring water on Dave until the medical helicopter came to get him.

So, Dave could have chosen to die that day, but he didn’t want to! He chose to stay here with me and our boys, thank God. I hope he will stay many years longer!