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

Lee Papa 0:08
I was married, had a young child, elderly mother living with me, and I was seeking my happiness externally. And I think a lot of us do that, and I was ill all the time. I was kind of had anything that came down the pike. I got it. And so I reinforced that by saying, you know, don't get near me. But the the key was that I was unhappy. And didn't really realize I was unhappy. There was some missing part of me that was trying to be filled externally. I realized that my whole life, I've been a seeker and a seeker of things that were unknown. It's like I came in knowing that there was something I needed to know. And so I did that for as long as I can remember, trying to make known the unknown. I would go to different services that, you know, I went to a Baptist funeral once, and I just thought, this is the way that you go, the go through the whole mourning process and then the celebration, like absolute, beautiful service. My elderly mother was really struggling, and she had fallen, and she was from the East Coast, and she, you know, spent 45 minutes on the floor kind of thing, right? And so my new husband and I, we just said, you know, something has to be done here. So family meetings, kind of situation, we decided she's going to move in with us. We're entrepreneurs. We had more flexibility than my siblings, and it was a big move. So we moved mom to Vegas. We ended up going to Vegas, which was kind of a funny side story, we were trying to figure out where to move away from LA because it was just too expensive for us to continue there and bring mom. So we were looking at different areas, and a friend of mine said, Why don't you try Las Vegas? And we were like, Las Vegas, not really Biden like no state income tax when we moved to Vegas. And mom, you know, as an elderly person, and spending, you know, 40 some years in the same home, that's a big move. And as much as we really tried to make that transition easier for her, there's only so much you can do that's just that was big. So mom struggled. So we were now with a young child and my elderly mom, and when we first moved to Vegas, within months, my husband was in a major car accident. He was rear ended at a light, you know, side note mourned my little 325, I convertible car. But the major thing that happened was that it really changed the trajectory of our lives. He saw this truck coming. He had nowhere to go, and it barreled into him at a standstill. So this once very playful, easy going, very healthy and fit, human changed in that moment. So he dealt with chronic pain. We were we were looking at this. This is a new chapter of our life, and it just really changed everything. And then we were in the middle of a lawsuit. And if anyone has been in a major lawsuit like that, it there's nothing positive about the process. And he ended up journaling every bit of his pain every single day for years, volumes. And so again, what does that do? That just deepens and embeds the disability. And so we were struggling and we were not going to make it, but we kept trying right this young family. And so he was dealing with his own pain and trauma, and I was dealing with my own need to fix everything. I was just starting this concept of understanding more about Reiki and energy healing and crystals. Fell in love with crystals. And for a minute, you know, I was shoving crystals underneath the mattress of my husband's side of the bed right thinking that miraculous thing was going to fix him. So he decided he was going to go on a Vipassana meditation. So 10 days, noble silence, he was going to go and really do this deep inner work. That was wonderful. You don't have a phone, you don't have any communication with the outside world. Once you go into this retreat, that's what it is for 10 days all inner work, total silence, meditation. Well, as he was getting ready to go, I was sick. Once again, I had some upper respiratory condition or something that was going and I wasn't getting better. And at that time, I was starting to really look at holistic approaches to wellness. I was raised in that bucked it for a while. Now it was coming full circle, and so I was didn't want to go to the doctor. I really was going to get well on my own. And he said, I really don't want you to leave you like this, right? If I'm gonna, if you can't contact me if something goes wrong. So I said, Okay, I'll go to the doctor. I'll get some antibiotics, which I did. And as I was leaving the doctor, he was saying goodbye. He had traveled to Colorado for this retreat. We said our goodbyes on the phone, and then I just couldn't leave it, right? I. Just couldn't rest. I had to get things done. And it's like I was just a woman on a mission. I was getting like, security system put in the house. I was, you know, I was not not taking care of myself. And then in a few, a couple of short days, I just went down. And then I again, just like this next level of down where I didn't know if I had I didn't know what was happening with my son. He was, you know, two at the time, my elderly mother, who was always around, somehow vanished. She was not to be found. I was kind of trying to call out in a whisper. I didn't know when the last time I had water. I didn't know the last time I had eaten, and so I felt myself drifting off, and yet my conscious mind was alert enough to say, you have to get someone to take care of your son, right? So I got the phone, I contacted my friend who is my son's godmother, and she came and took care of him. And as soon as I knew he was okay. My spirit left my body, and I could feel it lifting outside of my body. And with that beautiful release, I was in a space of light, the brightest and whitest of lights. I describe it as lightning strike white. And I didn't have a body. I was a sphere of light within the light, which is interesting, because you figure, you know if you're if you're light and you're in light, how do you know the difference? But there's, like, this differentiation of it. And it was just bliss. It was just sweet relief. And very quickly, I understood that this was this was it, and I could transition. And I had no qualms about leaving this suit behind, and then I noticed that there were these two light beings that were off in the distance. Again, depth perception is kind of a interesting thing when it's just all light. But I could see these two beings coming towards me, and it felt comfortable. They felt familiar, but safe. And as they got close to me, they spoke to me telepathically and said that, basically, it is not my time, but I had free will to choose whether to stay or to go. And I was like, going. I felt like it was, I was getting off of a roller coaster ride. You know, woo hoo. This was like an amazing ride. I'm done. Let's just go on. But what they said to me is that before I made this decision, there were things to know, and it wasn't quite a life review. I call it a relationship review. Whereas I didn't see physically, it was more visceral, and so the key relationships in my life would wash over me, and I would feel just the extraordinary love and wisdom and knowledge that I gleaned from the experience, and then that person would wash away, or that soul experience would wash away, and then the next one would come, and then I would have that experience. And I only really recall my husband, first, my mother, my husband and my son. So my husband came again, washing over and remembering that we were not in a good place. We really didn't even like each other at this point, and so we were just kind of getting through and yet, in this light, in this experience, just extraordinary love and the wisdom and the knowledge of the experience. No woulda, coulda, shoulda, not. You know what's gonna happen when I'm gone? Just grateful for the experience. And then as he washed away, my son came and felt like it was strategic and what they were doing, these beings felt like they had a job to do. The pureness of the love was just beyond and it was softer, softer and pure. I was just so grateful to have the experience of birthing. And my son was only two years old. So even on the other side, or this tweener space, as I call it, before I actually was, you know, going on the light train home, I made a deal, and I said, I will go back and be this beautiful souls mom until he doesn't need me anymore, and then I get to go when I want to go. And so no long drawn out illnesses, but when I get to choose, I get to go and boom, I was back in my body. And I sat up and went, what the expletive just happened to me? Because I didn't know I was calling it a fantasy of death. I went from being, you know, kind of on my deathbed to being almost completely better, sitting up alert and everything was beautiful. Everything had just like a film on it, a residue on it that was just different. Everything felt alive and vibrant and beautiful. I don't know how long I was sitting in my bed looking at these inanimate objects in my room, from the hinges on the door to the doorknob, in just awe of how beautiful everything was, and I was like, I need to get some help. What's this going on? I reached out to my sister at the time was studying metaphysics and meditation, and I joke in the book, because. She's a Leo, and she's very, very big personality, and she was silent while I just detailed everything of what happened, until I was like, So what do you think? And she was very exuberant, and she's like, you had an exit opportunity, and you know, that's so amazing, and people don't always remember them, but you know, there's a reason, and it was just a little too much exuberance of coming straight back. I was trying to understand again. I was calling it a fantasy of death, so I didn't know. So then, and I have no idea how much time I was there, or even after how long I sat in my room staring at everything, but I was still in bed when I contacted my sister and then reached out to my dear friend who was on her spiritual path, Brenda, I can feel her now because she's on the other side. She guided me to her spiritual mentor from Houston, Texas, and I reached out to her, left her a voicemail, and she contacted me like almost immediately, and she said, Tell me. And I told her exactly what happened. And she said, near death experience. She said, It's textbook. She said, Do you feel this way? Did this happen? And I was like, Yes, I feel this residue. Well, I mean, she's the one that gave me the term residue. And she said, journal. She said, it will start to dissipate slowly, slowly, and within two weeks it'll be gone. And boy, to the day, she was right on, and so that first couple of days was just pure bliss. No matter what it was that was happening, it was just beautiful. So the three main things were, my takeaway was that there is no attachment on the other side, just pure love. So there's no death, pure love and no attachment. Now coming from a person that was very attached previous to this. I mean, I was a helicopter mom, and anyone that doesn't know that term, you know you were on that child, yeah, right, and not on a lead, but just definitely eyes on to this child all the time, and very attached, very attached to all my relationships and all my experiences. So this was very much a lesson for me of this feeling of non attachment but pure love. You are everything that you need within you. You don't need to look outside yourself for anything. I believe the ultimate purpose is to love, to exemplify love and to experience. I go back to that because we chose to come here For an experience, and that's different for everyone.