Alex Ferrari 0:00
Tell me what your life was like before you died.

Bridget Cook-Burch 0:08
So I grew up. I was adopted when I was six months of age. So I already had three sets of parents by that time because I had my birth parents, foster parents, and then my my adoptive parents who were amazing, but I I carried a little bit of a well. I carried a deep wound inside of me that was wasn't I good enough? Wasn't I pretty enough? Wasn't I smart enough that I that they had to give me up? And unconsciously, I was always trying to do things for myself. I was very fiercely independent because you know the big people would always leave, and so this was rather exacerbated by my religious upbringing. So I grew up Catholic in Brigham City, Utah. So absolutely surrounded by the Mormon culture, there were very few of us that were not. I already had enough guilt to be a Jewish princess, so I I was living this, you know, very interesting story. Also, I had older brothers and sisters that were partiers, and that was absolutely taboo in our small town. And so, you know, there was all these black and white dichotomies and and other things that were around me. And one of the things that was tough was I was always trying to prove myself, like that I was worthy of being seen and heard, and you know, so sometimes my behavior would would be way out on a limb. But there was also this deep yearning inside me. my My dad was a deacon, one of the first level deacons in 1976, and my mom helped bring in converts, and you know, so here they're off on their spiritual journey, and I would go into the chapel in between masses, and sometimes I would just really yearn to know who that figure was up on the cross. But I didn't feel anything, and I also thought that I was pretty unworthy. Then I had a couple spiritual experiences, and I thought, "Oh, wouldn't it be great to become a nun? Like I could have these experiences all the time. This could be really cool, but there was a deeper part of me that felt so flawed, unable to come back from from the brink. You know, you're a partier. You're you're too crazy. You've done too much. You've made too many mistakes. How in the world could you ever become a nun, right? And so I just went off to college. I was working three jobs. I was going to school, and every step of the way, trying to prove that somehow I was worthy to breathe. Often didn't feel that way, but you know, I was getting good grades, and and my employers liked me, and I had friends, and and those kinds of things. But it really started to take a toll, and inside my body, stress and ulcers and fissures in my colon. I started to eat away at myself, and I didn't even know it. And so, you know, I'd move from job to job, and then try to take a test. And I started failing everything. I was failing my 23 credits. I was failing to pay my bills. I started really letting friends down, and I was letting my parents down. And I would do anything not to let them know what was going on with me. So I would lie, I wouldn't, I wouldn't let them know. But at one point, I got so sick. I'd lost 30 pounds in three days, and I was a runner and a and a bodybuilder in all my spare time, and I didn't have 30 pounds to lose. I took my last five bucks that I'd made from waitressing the night before and put it in my truck. And I made my way down the canyon to Brigham City to see my mom because I just was that sick. I needed my mommy. I just remember pulling up in her driveway and feeling like this horrific level of surrender of what a bad, sick, and wrong person I was. Just that you know, how could anyone love or accept me? And I, I was just not making it in the world, and just so beside myself.

Bridget Cook-Burch 3:57
And I dragged myself out of my truck, and I dragged myself to her front door or her side door, and she opened the door and she took one look at me and she said, "We're going to the doctor. You do not look well. And she put me right in her car and raced me over to the doctor's office where I collapsed. Luckily, it was right next door to the hospital, and they rushed me into an emergency surgery, and that's where they found pints and pints and pints of sepsis of infection, like in in my whole abdominal area. So I, they're like, okay, we we figured this out. They they had to put me on a subclavian because I was so emaciated they couldn't do a regular IV, and so they were giving me like six or seven different kinds of intravenous antibiotics, and what we didn't know was one of them was killing me. And so I get out of surgery. I'm expected to do well, but I start spiking these fevers, 106, 107. They're worried about brain damage. They're worried, you know, about a lot of things. And my mom, she comes and. And she's there as much as she can. And finally, at 2o'clock in the morning, I'd been in the hospital for several days. 2o'clock in the morning, and I hear them say, "We better call our mom back because she is not going to make it until morning. And I just remember, like you know, when you hear someone saying that you're going to die, you know, and I was I was in my early 20s, and I'm like, you know, I I knew I was failing at everything, but I certainly never thought that I was going to die. And so I'm I'm facing my own mortality, and there is like this deep sadness inside of me because I knew I had not fulfilled the measure of my creation. Now I had no idea what the hell that was, but I knew Alex that I hadn't fulfilled it. Like deep inside, I'm like, whoa! I came here to do some things. I haven't done them, and all I was was just the most sad I had ever been in my entire life. And my roommate behind the curtain, she said, "You you know you're dying, don't you? And I said yes. And I'd had an interesting spiritual experience with her that I didn't know her, but she had started reading. She and her husband were reading from the big book before she went into surgery, and I had been through some 12 steps. And here I'm listening to words about God, and I felt that yearning come back. That little girl in the chapel. You know, the one who who yearned for, but didn't have that kind of relationship at all. And so she and I started quietly talking. And what had happened when she had surgery? She had come back writhing in pain. Like her, she had one of those old-fashioned gallbladder surgery, so she could feel every cut and every stitch. I didn't know at the time that I was empathic, but all I knew is I could feel her pain from behind the curtain. I think it's just because all my walls were down, you know, so sick. I could feel her pain in her body, and then she had her bishop come, and he gave her a blessing, and he commanded her body to accept the medication, and I felt the pain leave as she sighed and went to sleep. And I thought, I don't know what that was-whatever voodoo or crazy stuff that was-but you know, I it stuck with me. So a little bit later was interesting after she said, "You know, you're dying, because she heard the nurses talking about me in the corridor. I said, "Yeah, I I am. And it was like one of those Mack truck moments where I said, "So can anyone have one of those blessings? And she said, "Yes. And she calls her husband right away, and he comes down, and he and another individual give me a blessing. And it was different than what I had experienced with with my priest who had come. My mom had brought the priest in, and I didn't know how to balance these two factors.

Bridget Cook-Burch 7:46
I only know what I felt, and that was like whether I lived or died, it was going to be okay. And up until that moment, I hadn't felt that way. So I went to sleep for a little bit, and when I woke up, that my hospital room was filled with the most incredible, piercing, beautiful, bright white light that I have ever seen. It was just it it it was so undeniable. I couldn't believe that you know that the the whole hospital team. I all I knew was that right in front of me was Jesus. He was right there, and he was looking at me in the eyes, and I knew him. And the cool thing about it is, he knew me. And that light that that was so bright-it was unconditional love. Like I'd been loved before, very loved, but it was nothing like this. And and still to this day, it's difficult for me to describe, but it permeated everything, and my whole body was like alive and on fire. I could feel every atom moving, and I was looking at my skin. You know, my hospital gown, and and I had short sleeves, and I'm looking at my skin, and it's vibrating with his love, and I have this like you know those ugly metal tray tables that the hospital feeds you on, and and my water was sitting on it, and the metal tray table was vibrating with his love. It was transforming everything in the room into something alive, and I was part of it, and he was a part of it. And I don't remember words, but I do remember this. He didn't care how much debt I was in, what classes I was failing, how stupid were the choices that that I was making in my life. He just loved me for me, and it absolutely changed my world. And he let me know I was being given a second chance at life, and my heart just left because I knew, oh my gosh, I'll have this chance to fulfill the measure of my creation. I'll I'll be able to to do something. I fell asleep, and when I woke up, my fever had had completely gone down, and the nurses wheeling in six or seven more of these intravenous antibiotics, and I. I said, "Hey, I can have every single one of these, but I cannot have this one. She just gave me this look, like, "Who do you think you are? And she said, "Bridget, we thought we were going to lose you last night. These are the only things that are saving you. And I said, "Not this one. And you know, in my very Catholic, very Western medicine family, like you never said no to a medical person that was trying to help you. They were like second only to God. So, and here I am. I'm arguing with her, and I'm like, I cannot have this one. And she's like, How? What? Why do you know this? And I try to explain to her, and have no words, right? But I'm trying to explain. She races off to tell the doctor that I am, you know, a fruit fly. I am, I am a French fry. I have a Happy Meal, and I am just, you know, crazy. Well, he came back into the room a while later. He listened to my story, and he'd had other patients with near-death experiences, and he said, "Well, we can take her off this antibiotic because she's on all the rest of these. Let's just see how she does. And in 24 hours, I walked out of that hospital on my own power. My body was healed, and the story that I had been telling myself wasn't worthy, wasn't good enough, wasn't smart enough, wasn't whatever enough. It began to shift and change. But the the coolest thing was like you know I could I could look into my eyes in the mirror for the very first time I could like really look at me and I could see love there and what I loved the most was I went out into the world and I'm you know interviewing young people and high risk youth in Denver and you know all of these gang members and other people and I could love them for who they are.

Bridget Cook-Burch 11:41
I I began to see threads of their stories, and I could see love there. It didn't matter how dark or dramatic or difficult their circumstances were, and I really saw how much it matters the stories that we tell ourselves. Like what my narration was before my near-death experience, I lived life in a box, and it was all about being unworthy. And then I see these gang kids, and it's like you know, mom and dad are gang members, and grandma, grandpa, and aunt and uncle, and they lived in a box of stories they were telling themselves. When something would happen, when someone loved them enough to show them a different way, when you know they would have a life changing moment, and when that box lid opened, I could watch what happened when their transformation took place, and I wanted to capture those stories, and so I had the opportunity to. It was amazing.