Table of Contents
· Introduction
· Chapter 1: About Me
· Chapter 2: The Story of Nicole
· Chapter 3: I Didn’t Die: Twice
· Chapter 4: Transcendent Experience: truth or groundless fiction
· Chapter 5: I Became my Own Boss and Fired Myself
· Chapter 6: Voices in my Head – Part I
· Chapter 7: Saved by an Accident
· Chapter 8: Why I didn’t Finished my C.F.P.
· Chapter 9: Strange Deaths in my Circle
· Chapter 10: Strange Things are Happening
· Chapter 11: A Blessed Burden
· Chapter 12: The Ladybug Story
· Chapter 13: A Ghost in a Red Top
· Chapter 14: A Handful of Rocks
· Chapter 15: The Missing Set of Keys
· Chapter 16: Farm Animals
· Chapter 17: Butterflies, Hummingbirds and Numbers
· Chapter 18: The Hawaii Trip
· Chapter 19: I Felt the Cells of my Body
· Chapter 20: They Put me in a Ventilator
· Chapter 21: Me and The BLM Connection
· Chapter 22: Doodling with Words
· Chapter 23:Truth and Reconciliation
· Chapter 24: Voices in my Head – Part II
· Chapter 25: A Website Creation – The Kindness Project
· Chapter 26: Where am I Now
· Epilogue
· Insights from the Epilogue
-Introduction-
A love for life is ultimately the inspiration for the writing of this book. And a love for life is also a love for self. It’s one and the same thing. But it wasn’t an easy road for me towards that realization. I will leave the analysis and interpretation of that understanding near the end as the epilogue of the book.
There are twenty six chapters in the book. Twenty five of the twenty six chapters represent actual events or personal experiences that I consider extraordinary in nature. They are not ordinary in the sense that they are not something you would normally hear about in most people’s conversations in our day to day interaction with the world. Many of the stories evoke a mystery of some kind. Whether the underlying tone is synchronistic in nature, eerily strange or awe inspiring, they are true. And they all happened to me.
Perhaps a handful of experiences may not necessarily be considered extraordinary by some standards but were included for their interesting read inspired by their particular moments. Each experience is separate and unrelated to each other. In other words, one event didn’t cause the other event to take place to the best of my knowledge.
I prefer to call these experiences, dots as in the random dots of life. Although the dots are unrelated, the chapters are placed in a chronological order of when they occurred for the most part. When a chapter does not fall in the correct chronological order for a reason, I gave it a background and a timeline of the event to put the story in some perspective for the reader.
The first chapter is about me, hence the title of the chapter. It’s the only chapter that I considered not an extraordinary event. It’s a snapshot of my life story to a point in time. I felt it necessary to paint a picture of my life’s journey to provide some insight as you read from one chapter to the next.
It may seem oxymoron to say that my life is ordinary and yet the events of my life are extraordinary. There is a distinction. The snapshot life story in chapter one is merely a skeletal view with tidbits of details. It’s meant to provide a high level historical backdrop and hopefully some understanding and appreciation for all the chapters that followed as they are distinctive stories of their own.
I actually believe that all life is special including yours and a story to be told. It’s worth telling just as it is. But many people’s lives are yet to unfold before their eyes or unable to see for themselves. It is with conviction that I say we have a role to play through much effort and reflection if we wish to connect the dots of our lives. And thus, be able to tell a story.
At the same time, I can only speak of one life and be able to speak about it in detail. This of course is my own. In its entirety, chapter 1, “About Me” and chapter 26, “Where Am I Now”, can be seen as the book-ends of the life you are about to read.
I've also decided to write an epilogue to distill the events captured in all twenty six chapters. How do I make sense of these seemingly unrelated and fascinating stories? The epilogue is an analytical attempt of the life that unfolded before me. But, nothing prepared me for what came during the actual process of writing the epilogue. A glorious and heart-warming revelation transpired. The clarity of a life came to a full view after taking each experience as critical pieces in developing the complete picture. What emerged is a portrait of a unique and purposeful life. And what followed next was the start of a healing process.
Typically, the epilogue is an indication of the end section of a book. The writing stops there and that was my intention. But I never expected a life changing moment to arise. Subsequently, I felt compelled to share the experience of the epilogue in greater detail. I decided to include a final chapter aptly called, “Insights from the Epilogue.”
One last thing… As you will eventually discover, I didn’t start out wanting to write a book towards a completion of a memoir. It was the actual process of writing itself that discovered me and who I am which led to a memoir you are about to read.
