#338 - Gary Gillett Has A 6 Inch Bolt Stuck In His Neck

0:00 From the time that they pronounced me deaf was a good 45 minutes. They cut my clothes and then they paddled my heart, my heart had stopped. And I could see people screaming and crying, but I didn't realize that was actually my physical body because I was somewhere else. The only thing that I could feel, if you could imagine, absolute love and peace, there wasn't anything else to be felt. I was greeted by people I'd known in the past. I'm back home again. Incredibly safe and felt at home. Before we jump into today's interview, I just want to mention that it's with Gary, who lives on Maui, not too far from where the tragic fires burned.

0:49 Our discussion was recorded a few days before the fires, and I'm happy to report that Gary and his friends and family are all okay, but many of them lost their homes and businesses. Our thoughts, prayers, and aloha goes out to all those dealing with this tragedy. Always remember Maui Nokaoi. Welcome to Roundtrip Death, everybody, and I'd like to welcome our special guest today, Gary Gillette, all the way from Maui. How are you, Gary? I'm doing fine. How are you doing? Good. Now, one of the things that I've learned in doing this podcast, when we started, I assumed that maybe there were some people out there that had had one NDE.

1:37 I never even thought somebody might have two, let alone three, let alone how many you've had, which there's our little Ts that we're going to get to later as we get chatting today. But Gary is a lot of fun. Tell us a little bit about you, Gary. Well, I guess you would say multifaceted. I learned at an early age that creativity is life. And so I got into being an artist and then a musician, and then I played around with the art of voice acting. And then I became more serious of a writer, I guess you could say.

2:17 When I traveled a bit and I learned languages as I traveled and the accents of all the different countries and all the different plays and all the different ways of kind of creating, you know. So I guess I'm still doing that. Nothing's changing. Should I put you on the spot and ask you to give us a couple here and there? How about Irish? Well, you want to do Irish accent. We're going to start that way, aren't we? Sure, why not? How about good old Hawaiian pigeon English? Oh, hey, brother. What are you talking about, Hawaiian? Yesterday I go for Bayewan Bay. Oh, yeah, everything for no brother.

2:58 All right, we're going to have fun with Gary today. And you're way up on the mountain on Maui and have a great view. But let's take a different kind of view now. Let's look back over some of your near-death experiences starting when you were very young. Tell us about NDE number one. I was just born. So that is pretty young, isn't it? So how can you remember it? That's the question I can't wait for you to talk about. I guess the funny thing is you aren't a human when you die.

3:38 That's all I'm going to say. I was a baby. I was just born and I remember my grandmother who told my mother. My grandmother was very religious, by the way. She told my mother, pick out a grave. He's not coming home because of SIDS, a sudden infant death syndrome, which I think was just an infant death syndrome back then. I don't know if they changed it or whatever. But I know that I was among other babies and a lot of us died and didn't come back, but I was one of the ones who did. And in all seriousness, do you actually remember some of that? Or did you just grow up knowing that you had had this experience from others? Both because you are never in doubt.

4:21 When you actually have a new death experience, it's more real than what we consider life now that you think is a real. This whole mayan, this illusion we call life is exactly that. When you die, you're like, oh, yeah, that's right. I forgot. I'm a spirit. I'm not supposed to necessarily be in human form, but here's what happened. I was like, okay, so I was delighted to come home so soon to tell you the truth. And they said, well, we took a boy from your family earlier, nine years earlier than I had been born, my brother. So I was like, and I'm trying to make out what the relevance was as a spirit.

5:01 I'm like, so what? And so you have two beautiful daughters, you're two beautiful girls, but they're praying and crying for a boy because they took Michael, who had died from pneumonia when he was a baby, six months old, actually. And so I said, okay, so they said, so you're going to go back and you're going to live with this family and they're going to love you. I said, well, not as much as you here, not as much as here. It's impossible. They said, they're going to do the best they can, give them a chance, go back and be a good boy and be the boy they've always wanted. And that was my message. That was it. So you were a baby. How old were you? Just born. Just absolutely newborn.

5:42 Okay. Almost just fresh. I'm not sure how long it was, but later on my mom conferred. She said, yeah, she says, I couldn't believe that, you know, that we were going to lose you and then here you were. You were back. I said, yeah, no, I took it kind of matter of fact because I was there, remember? Yeah. I remember the song 50 ways to leave your lover. Yeah. I'm wondering how that applies to your situation of how many different ways can someone die in their life? Well, there's one. If we were to redo that song into, you know, 50 ways to pass away or whatever.

6:23 Do we really want to go there? No, we don't. But your next NDE is so freakishly unusual. Take us forward to the eight year old little Gary. I think that would be a good verse in the song. I can make one up right now, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you the facts of it. Okay. So I'm watching cartoons, me, me, and all the road runner and what's up, Doug? All the gang, you know, and I'm having a great time. And I hear something outside and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I said, oh, it's just a lawnmower. So I look outside and sure enough, my friend is helping his brother mow the lawn, a little strip of grass behind a store called 50 Mart where I lived, you know, right behind the store.

7:08 And I was like, this is pretty cool. So, well, Bugs Bunny can maybe wait. I'm eight years old and I got my PJs on and my family still asleep and let's go explore the world. So I put my slippers on and off I go. Where were you living then? This was a different era. 1967, Haasina Heights, California. Okay. So, it's beautiful Saturday morning. All right, keep going. So I walk out there and I see my friend and I hear the lawn being mowed and I smile and wave and I'm, Hola, Hola, amigo. Hey, Gary, Hola, que paso? Hola. So we're all like happy and smiling and he's my, you know, he's my schoolmate at school with his brother, older brother, Miguel.

7:52 And so I was like, okay, some guys come sit here or stand here and watch. I mean, what else have I got to do? It's kind of a cool thing to, as an eight year old, if they can, this guy's making money doing this. This is amazing. What a world. And then I hear the sound of a very, very loud, I guess you would say like steel being thrown into a wood chipper. It's like, and then next thing I know something slaps my neck. Just go slaps. And I was like, what the heck was that? And I'm just like trying to make sense of it. And I'm going, amigo, que se esto? Oh boy, they're saying words I didn't know yet.

8:34 Miguel, Miguel, look, look, look, look, my God. It's like, what's going on? And I kind of feel this liquid trickling down my neck. I taste it. Oh no, that's blood. That's not water. It's probably not going to end well. That goes my Saturday morning, you know, cartoon viewing. Because I usually, you know, 7am to 3pm, you got that full day. So they finally settled them to turn the mower off. And the next thing I know, they're saying, you know, siéntate, siéntate, siéntate, siéntate, siéntate. So I sit down and I'm still trying to figure out what this thing is in my neck. And apparently it's sticking out quite a ways towards quite a sight.

9:15 And you can see on the book, this boy is about to die, the life, death and life of Gary G. On Amazon, you can see the picture of me laying on a gurney. I don't know if you have it with you, but that would be a good thing to show. And what happened apparently was the lawnmower picked up a bolt about six inches long, I would say something like that. And it's a winding incline steel bolt that's maybe an easy half inch round that's used to mount transformers onto the utility bolts. Well, it shot it right into my neck on an angle. It just stuck right in there and thankfully, I guess it became its own cork.

9:55 So it stayed in there. And then after a while, people were starting to come out of their houses and Ray Montanez, one of our barbers came over and he put up a roll up a blanket or whatever from the from the barber and rolled up and put it under my head. That felt kind of good because it took the weight off the bolt. And next thing I hear, here comes the, here comes the, what's going on? Oh, this is for me, isn't it? My sister told my family, they thought I was hit by a car or one of the neighbors did and they were kind of freaking out cause I'm just laying on the grass. So they didn't know what happened either. And for me, it just was like, okay, so this is just another day in the life of a young boy.

10:39 Can I just interject something? Because lawnmowers back in those days were a little bit different than they are now. They used to throw the grass out the side. They sure did. And if you had a grass catcher, it was on the side, but most people didn't. They're much safer now, but they used to throw rocks and. Oh yeah, I got hit by a lot of them. All kinds of things. I've never heard about somebody getting hit by a six inch bolt. Yeah, that was quite a fling when you think about it to be able to shoot it. I'm eight years old, so I'm roughly what four and a half feet off the ground. Yeah. And it shot straight up, right into my gut. It actually stuck in your neck.

11:20 Did it hit the jugular? Oh, here's the key. It missed my jugular vein and spinal cord by one eighth of an inch, which I learned later. In the meantime, I'm in an ambulance going, this is great. I'm in an eight year old in an ambulance going through red lights going, this is me. This is so cool. And the next thing I know, I'm starting to get a little heavy-litted. My dad's in the back with me. And I'm feeling like, ah, this is kind of a good place to... So I fell asleep. I guess they gave me something to help me with that. But I felt no pain. I felt no anguish. Remember, I already had one near-death experience. It's kind of hard to scare a little boy who was taking on the world to begin with.

12:03 And then I've already had something that was traumatic to most people. So I was, next thing I know, I am on a gurney and the picture shows me on a gurney with a thing stick and I should have a picture for you. We'll get a picture and we'll post it with this. Yeah, okay. And then I'm just watching them operate on this little guy. And I'm watching them going, wow, I hope they don't cut off that shirt. It's his favorite shirt. He, it says, one of his, I had two pyjama tops and they were all like all the national football baseball teams. And I had one red one and one blue one. And this was my blue one they were cutting. And I was like looking at it going, huh, he likes that shirt.

12:46 I was, I was just, I was totally apart from the whole scene. I said, wait a minute, how do I know this boy? Oh, that's me. Oh, they're operating on me right now. So you felt like you were in the same room? Were you like up by the ceiling? Were you, yeah, I was watching from like above, like the ceiling area. And I'm listening to the doctors and I'm taking, well, I was pretty good life eight years, not bad. So you didn't feel, you didn't feel traumatized. You weren't scared. You weren't desperate to get back in that body. Not the least, but no, I was more celebrating. I was celebrating the fact that I had a great life.

13:26 He was a sweet little boy and I'm going to miss him. And the next thing I know, I'm for lack of a better term on the other side. And what did you see and experience there? Oh, love, just pure love and acceptance and, and, and them laughing because they knew I was going back. There's a lot of joy in, in, you know, heaven or whatever you want to call it because I'm surrounded. I see my brother and I see other, other people I recognize by the way, even though I don't know why I recognize them. You're going too fast. Give me more detail. Is there a journey to get there? For example, some people talk about a tunnel. Some don't. Do you remember any of that part of it? Oh, here's the funny thing.

14:07 Remember I already had one. So I think it was the quickest route I ever imagined. It wasn't like going through a tunnel or anything. I was just there. And without any preconceptions, I already knew what to expect. I guess. So by the time I was there, I was like, Oh, this is wonderful. I'm home. I'm like, you're not staying. Why not? You know, eight years, that's a long time to put into a human body. And they're like, no, you're going back. You have to teach people. You have, you get to, you know, your honor, your reason you're doing it. And the higher part of you knows this is that you're going back to tell people, I guess, what it's like to, to get over the fear and, and to be fine joy.

14:54 And actually what they told me was your job. And this is what they reiterated from when I was a baby. And I didn't tell you this, your job is to teach love. I said, Oh, goodie. I got an easy one. So my job is to teach love and you're going to be fine. And we're not taking you away from this family because we already took one little boy. Remember that? Yeah. So you're going back. You're going to be fine. You're going to, you know, be able to learn from this and, and you're going to find joy and you're going to be happy. And, and we think that you're going to be a good little boy and go back. I said, well, I guess I am no choice of the matter. But the higher part of you knows the higher part of you says, Okay, this is, this is our job.

15:35 This is our, this is what we signed up for. And so I woke up and I'm surrounded by cameras and news crews. They all reported me dead. It was like six minutes or something. I was dead and I had this big, huge bandage on my neck. Huge. And I was looking around going, what's going on? Oh, that's right. I'm back. But I have toys and books. Who brings a little dying boy books? That's what I want to know. You wanted the toy toys and candy. Oh, my sisters got into this idea that they were going to share my candy. I had a tree full of, you know, lifesavers.

16:16 They're not getting any of that. Maybe some from the book of lifesavers because I got a lot of candy. A lot of candy and toys. And I had a hippo that was spotted, beautiful, beautiful hippo. And I'm surrounded. People are asking me all these questions. You know, what's it like? What's it like on their side? But they're thinking, you know, what's it like to be, you know, having gone through all this? And I said, I don't know. I mean, essentially I'm back and, you know, I'm a kid, you know, what do I know? How do I describe this to you, you know, to fellow humans? How do I describe it to adults? So lots of smiles and lots of pictures and toys and candy. And then they left. Well, and that was back in a time where the term near death experience had not even been created yet.

16:59 Precisely. Right. And so I imagine they treated you more like, I don't know, were you tabbed as the miracle boy? I actually was. Yeah. The miracle. Yeah. See, I could be a headline writer. Well, you were. But you did, you know, you did, I obviously do some writing in that. And it was called the one in a million accident. Wow. The miracle boy. It gets more interesting because what happened was, and this is something that you know, you know, your listeners or you can take with a grain of salt. But the doctor came in and told my, you know, my, my, my mom, Mrs. July, you know, I go to the same church as you do.

17:43 So I have no reason to pre-vericate. There's no reason I would lie about this. X-ray I'm showing you, I cannot show to the press. She said, why? She says, because it shows the bolt slightly bent to miss your son's vital organs, but I hold the bolt in my hand and it's perfectly straight. He said, when we took it out, it wasn't bent. He said, that's a bit much for some people to take. And he said, it generally was, it genuinely was a miracle. And she said, wow, what can she say? My dad said the same thing. And we just kind of like, okay, you know, whatever. My mom, it took her, she was a writer.

18:23 It took her three years to put this into writing so she could explain to me what I had gone through. She said, you saved several lives. She said, there were so many miracles on that day. I can only name five. She says, for the most part, the first one was you didn't feel any pain. Second was you didn't bleed to death. The, the, the bolt acted like a cork. The third one is you're not damaged in any way that is going to be longterm. The fourth one, your aunt was afraid to have an operation, but she said, if my nephew can go through this, I can have an operation. It saved her life. And the fifth one, she said, just you're still my little boy. So wow.

19:04 That's really awesome. That's great. I love to hear that. Yeah, me too. Before we move on to your next unusual death experience, that's a new term. I just coined. Is there anything more about the eight year old boy that you want to tell us? From that point forward, I became fascinated as you are now with the idea of leaving the body and coming back. And maybe there's more going on than we think in this three dimensional world. Were you going to a church that taught you about that? Or was this kind of foreign and new? No, no, no. No, there's nothing to, to deal with the church. In fact, I became a heretic in a way because I was going to church and I think I was about, I already studied quite a bit of religions and different aspects of near death and stuff.

19:56 So by the time I was like 14, I was questioning the pastors and they had no answers. And they were saying, there's only one way to get there. And I said, I don't think there is. I said, I think that there are many, many ways to get there. There's many paths to get there. And I don't think you can tell me any more than I already know as far as that goes. I said, I appreciate your work in this aspect, but I'm not going to come back and listen because you're saying there's only one way to go. And I didn't, I didn't feel that. I didn't feel that there was only one path. I felt that your path was your path and it all led to the same place. And if I had been born Buddhist, I would not be a sinner. I would not be in a position to where I can no longer find my path back to my real, my spirit.

20:44 So I said, so I don't, I don't buy it. I can't buy it. I studied Judaism and I studied Buddhism. I studied all these. And I said, so I appreciate your work, but you won't see me here again. And I got back into the books. In addition to that, I imagine it was unusual growing up during teenage years and things like that with the knowledge that you had that other people don't. You knew there was something more than just this life because you had experienced it and remembered it. Yeah. I think what happens is I couched it in humor. So I was able to get beyond people's fear by saying, well, here's what, here's what I remember. But you know, life is just, let's just enjoy it while we got it, you know, that kind of thing.

21:29 So I got into that aspect of just being enjoying life. So comedy was your therapy? I guess comedy and playfulness and, and getting past the seriousness of people who really essentially are just in fear of death. Yeah. But also having an experience like that, you can feel very alone. You can feel like you're the only one. Oh yeah. That I had to call it a secret, but almost like you're the only one that knows this secret and nobody else around you really understands. And especially back then when people didn't know the term near death experience, who could you even talk to about it? Well, that was the hard part.

22:10 Even people who had the experience didn't want to talk about it. Right. There was no, there was still either very cloudy on it or they were terrified of it. And I interviewed people like that all the time. If they had their experience in the 60s, 70s, 80s, you didn't talk about it because if you did people said you were crazy. Sure. And they would treat you that way. So I think that must have been something hard to deal with at your age, not being able to talk about it or process it. So you turned to humor and that's a positive thing. Well, if I'm already crazy, then I don't have to worry about what I tell people. Okay. I get it.

22:51 That makes sense, right? Yeah. A lot of people would ask me about it all the time. I'd say, well, here's what I've gone through. It doesn't mean it's going to be your reality. I'm only at that time 16, 17 years old. And I got into martial arts and I got into meditation and deeper and deeper into it. And I realized there's a lot more going on that I can't begin to describe to people. But it doesn't mean that it is something that I want to marginalize because it's so powerful. So I just said, listen, however you get to your point of spirituality is up to you. But essentially there's no one's life that's like another one's.

23:33 So stop looking at someone else's life and going, oh, I wish I had done this or I'd like that. No, it's a waste of your time. Just live your life the best you can. Be a good person. Love yourself. That's the key I found. By not loving yourself is what gets people lost. Honor yourself. You say, I have these experiences. They're my experiences. And I started writing the book back then, actually. I didn't finish this boy's book to die 33 years later. Really? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I just started putting bits and pieces together and then I started reading my mom's notes. I'm going, wow, this is real. I better kind of find a way to come to terms with the idea of maybe teaching other people how to deal with this.

24:19 You don't have that bolt, do you? Yeah, sure do. You do? With me? No, it's in my storage in California. But you own it. You have it. You know where it is. Oh, yes. Oh, probably, yes. Half of it with bloodstained. It's beautiful. I want to see that sometime. And I have the articles from my uncle actually worked for the utility company. So they put, you know, pain in the neck. They put out a brochure, make sure you clean up after yourself, blah, blah, blah, all this other stuff. What does this say in the newspaper? Here's a genius headline for you. Bolt hits boys. Wow. Outrapt.

24:59 I was like, you guys took the day off. How about, and boy can't hit back. See, that would be better. Something, you know, can you imagine? At least pain in the neck is funny. It gets you, it gets you mind going, why and how? Yeah, we need the teaser. All right, let's go forward to the year 2000. And I know you can't have something really kind of bizarre happen again. You know, some people are hit by buses. That's pretty bizarre. What happened to you? Where are you going with this? You were hit by a truck. I was. Tell us about it though. Were you a pedestrian? Were you in a car?

25:40 What happened? Here we go. So I was with my fiance, Laura, and she had just finished doing, we were both massage therapists. We're called Healing Hands in California. We were happily massaging people, making money. I was doing voice acting and recording a lot of different shows and doing radio. And she was teaching English and she was an English major and had flown to England and studied Shakespeare and all that. We were quite a couple, but she used to tell stories on stage. And then we got together and I kind of peppered some of her stuff with some, with more interesting stories about non-angelic stuff because she told stories angels came to hear.

26:27 I mean, we were like salt and pepper, yin, yang, because she would tell stories and people would bring angel gifts who never met her before. It's just literally just something about her, my little angel on earth. I called her, you know, just, this is amazing. She couldn't do any evil characters. I would audition her for evil, and she had her evil characters had to be nice. So I had the witch being maybe kind of a little more adult and she actually loves children and doesn't eat them. She had a heck of a time doing my characters that I auditioned her for. But we played and had a good time and did a few TV shows, you know, local TV shows and a lot of shows like for libraries and museums and, you know, bookdays and schools, everything, you know, we had a great time.

27:17 Well, one day we decided that maybe it might be fun to go to the Cajun Creole Festival in CB Valley, California. And I think it's a wonderful idea because I've never done it before. So I picked her up at her chiropractor where she was doing massage that morning in CB Valley and picked her up. I'd already scouted the area and then I came back to pick her up, you know, because it didn't start, it started about maybe nine o'clock. I was there about seven o'clock, seven thirty. So I went to go and pick her up because, oh, I dropped her off. That's why I was there early. And then I went to pick her up and brought her back and we had a wonderful day, Eric, a wonderful day. Just delightful, love, love, love, dancing, playing.

28:00 Well, here's where it gets a little bit, you know, more interesting is as we enjoyed the day, we were heading back to the car and we were crossing the street on what they would call an implied crosswalk because it's the only way to get to the parking lot from the event. And the parking lot was the train station, the old train station in CB Valley. So as we're crossing, we're still dancing. She's so playful. She's so loving. This is my girl. And next thing I know, the lights went out. They just went black. Well, it turns out we were hit by a truck doing 50 miles an hour and took us both out. Literally took us both out. She flew a hundred ninety one feet and I flew about, I guess, eighty one feet and she hit her head on a truck and died on the way to the hospital.

28:47 And I died with her from my injuries. And so we went together. Now that's something that you probably haven't encountered too many times. No, I haven't. And by the way, if we have a listener out there that died with someone else and you both came back, I would love to talk to both of you at the same time. That'll be a new one for the show. Yeah. Because guess who didn't come back? Yeah. So you were the only one that came back. I'm so sorry to hear that. Yeah, thank you. I came back and learned to walk again. But in the meantime, I was just in joy with this woman. We were animals. We were wind. We were leaves. We were everything you can imagine playing hide and seek in ice and just just unbelievable stuff that I could just just barely describe to somebody in a three dimensional world.

29:35 It was so beautiful and so wonderful. And she's and I could see her through the ice and she didn't know I could see her. She was she played hide and seek in this iceberg. And I was like, I see you. So do you mind if we if we take this a little bit step by step and kind of chronologically as you can remember it? What's the first thing you remember? Like like when you were a you were kind of up by the ceiling and you saw your body and then you went to another place. Did the same thing happen here? Can you walk us through the story? No. What happened was it was just black and then I was with her and we were dancing and playing and having that's exactly how it happened.

30:16 And where would you say you were or describe what it looked like? We were in a world that is more real than this one because we were everything at once. And because of that, we were able to enjoy each other's spirits and smile and play. And there's no time space continuum out of the body. You probably don't by now. So because of that, we didn't know how long we were. I felt like months. You know, I'm sure it wasn't. And then one day she smiles and just looks at me and I see her beautiful blue eyes. And then I see beautiful wings or blue behind her. And I say, oh, I have a feeling I'm either going to get my wings or I'm not because we used to talk about that.

31:03 And she said, nothing, but she just gently pushed me back. And that was it. And I woke up in a very, very dark room and I thought I was on a boat. Turns out I was on a bed that goes like this to get my circulation going. And the machine that squeezes my feet for circulation. And I'm asking the person in the dark, can you stop squeezing my feet please so I can sleep? But it's all in my head because I'm intubated. Yeah, how long had you been in the hospital at this point? So I was there at that point. It was only a few days. And then the lights came on and I saw what was going on. I was like, whoa.

31:44 Oh, that's right. I get to come back. I didn't know. And all the machines and everything are, I'm like, oh crap. And without Laura. How much grief was associated with that right then? No amount of grief that was, I guess you would say, assuaged by love. Because I knew that that was why I had to be there. And I was glad. I was grateful. Not for my life, but because she didn't have to go through this. Because I knew I could do it. I was already gone through twice and I knew that I could do whatever I had to do. I didn't know I'd be in ICU for five weeks.

32:25 27 bones broken. I didn't know that. All I knew was that I had to somehow find my way back to being whatever I had to do. Learn to walk again, start all over. I knew that was my job and she made sure I knew it. I think you mentioned to me previously that you had another NDE during this experience in the hospital. Yeah. That was not that long afterwards. I was still in ICU in room number four. And what was that like? Did you get to go visit Laura again? No, it wasn't Laura. It was my brother from another mother, Greg from Germany. And he came to visit me and he was all in his little suit and everything.

33:06 And he's a world famous linguist and everything. And I saw a little thing on his shirt. You know, I said, oh, you got the little linguist button. And he had a little brown suit and next, I was gone again. And the next thing I know, they bring me back because it was just a code blue and they threw his ass out in the hallway. I said, no, you can't be, because he lied and said he was my real brother just to get in. So did somehow that visit set this off to where you coded again? Oh, yeah, it was a bit too much. It was a bit too much for my heart. Yeah. I just, I mean, your body goes through all these things and new surprises aren't really probably what you're really good for, you know.

33:49 So do you remember leaving your body again that time? No, there was no time. Well, not one, not the shortest because as soon as I blacked it was, I was back in no great big bus gone. And he later would say, I'm sorry, I almost killed you. I said, what do you mean almost? But was that what you did? You did. You got thrown out of the room and you did kill me. And that was like I said, a short one. And then next thing I know, I'm back on my mission. What do I do next? You know, what do I do? Which is what? Learn to walk again, get over whatever I have to do. And actually the hardest day I ever had, the only day I actually cried was when I was actually out of that room into a real room with what they call ABS, adult brain, ABD word.

34:37 Because they thought I might have had some kind of brain damage from that. But they gave me tests that they said, there's no way, but you can have the whole room. And I said, yeah, look around. There's no one here, right? I'll take it. And they said, whatever it is, didn't mess with your brain. They were giving me numbers to repeat and stories and I would give it to a verbatim. That's amazing. You can get hit by a truck and not have a traumatic brain injury. Well, here's the funny thing is that I didn't know if I did or not, but they're giving me a defenylhydentylen, dilantin, all the time. And I did not like that because it burns your veins when it goes in. It burns and you had to follow it with saline. So I tried to get them off dilantin as fast as possible.

35:21 And I remember thinking, you know, this is the only time I'm really actually in pain is because the veins felt like they were exploding with the dilantin. And I said, if I'm able to pass the tests, can you get me off this crap? But the only time I cried, I mean, because the dilantin would be, I was in a room with four other people. One guy just kept on calling for the nurse, even though he had a nurse button. And his name was Bill. So he was on my right going, nurse, nurse, nurse, nurse, nurse. I mean, Bill, shut up, push the button with the little nurse. But he started, nurse. The guy across from me was Cowboy trying to get off his horse.

36:02 He's trying to get out of there. So apparently it wasn't the right word. And he's going, I'm getting on leaving tonight, Gary. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm getting on my horsey and I'm riding out. And he goes, you last time you did that, you broke your leg, Cowboy. You may not want to do that again. And the other kid was injured in a ski accident and he was in a lot of pain. They had a lot of tubes. So I had all the tubes in me. So I was doing like voices and sounds to entertain him. I was a little R2D2. And then, I don't know, off to has all these tubes. And what are we going to do? So I would make them laugh. And they were enjoying that. And I was like, okay, so that's what I dealt with there. When they put me in the big room, then I said, okay, there's no one here but me, you know?

36:44 And I liked that idea, but they showed me a video that was sent to me of Laura's funeral. And that's when I cried. And I didn't cry for me. I cried for the world because that's how much Laura was so powerful, so beautiful, an angel that had to leave the Lurley. And the nurses said, you know, you've done PT and you've done so good and we're just going to let you stay in bed and bring you a hot tea and some blankets. And that was it. I had my good cry and let it go. You mentioned angel wings a few minutes ago. Blue angel wings, if I remember right.

37:24 Yes. I always thought angel wings were, what's the word I'm looking for? They were more of a symbolic thing. That's what you get for not dying. Yeah, I assume that they were a symbolic thing. Are you saying that they're real that some angels actually have wings? Yeah, but they are a symbolism of being pure. And she used to see me on earth with purple ones. She could see stuff like that when we massage people. She could see pets you had as a boy. She could say, oh, there's Timmy. Look at Timmy, the little poodle. And I can see a blob.

38:06 She could say, Timmy, oh, there's a horse. What's his name? Oh my God. Freaked him out. She had that kind of, you know, she could do that. That's amazing. So I wasn't that surprised when she says, oh, I see your wings are purple. I go, they are. And I said, I have a feeling yours are like kind of a bluish color because I could, I could see auras. And she goes, oh, I don't know. I can't see my own. She even wrote a book for me that she did. I didn't see until she died. Can you imagine that? She wrote a book called Angel and Training. And she died without me knowing about it until I cleaned out the file cabinet. And it's complete. The whole book is completed. Is that something that you've had published or that's just a personal thing for you?

38:48 Still kind of working on it. I haven't found an artist besides me. And I don't know if I'm good enough to, I think I am, but I'm working on it to get the beautiful illustrations I want. My books are all ebooks, so I haven't had a chance to really do a hard copy. But it's all finished. It's all on white paper. So I'm trying to put this whole picture together of this conversation. And I think what comes to me as sort of the bottom line is you are someone that had opportunity to die and not come back a few times in your life, but you were sent back. I want to ask the big why, you know, I mean, you must think about this.

39:30 Why was I sent back? And it may have been for your sisters early on, but at this point in your life, do you feel like you have some kind of responsibility or mission or something else that you need to accomplish before someday you're gone for the last time? Virtually every day. Every day I'm alive. I think of that. But I also am very zen. So I know that my death is tomorrow. Your death is tomorrow. It's not something that you can say, Oh, I have to do this before I die. I've written seven books. I publish three. I have others writing all the time.

40:12 Just to, it's more of a catharsis than anything else, but it's also, I've talked to people and literally their lives changed overnight. Just by talking, just by saying a couple of things that they needed to hear. I mean, literally the last two weeks I've changed to, they had no idea until they asked the right questions and I happen to have the right answers. They didn't even read my book yet. I just asked the question. I said, well, the thing is, when you ask the right question, I will have an answer to that baby you need to hear. It's usually about, you know, respecting yourself and love and stuff like that. Oh, here's an interesting aside. When I was, I knew my mother was going to die.

40:52 I didn't know exactly when, but I knew I got kind of a feel in the air in October that she was going to die soon and it was like very soon. And I wasn't sure, but I dealt with it and I had, I cried then and I didn't cry. My friend was with me in my driveway in Tarzan and he said, what's going on? And I said, well, I just felt my mother die. He said, really? And I said, yeah, but I'm not crying for her. I'm crying for my dad because he's going to take it really, really hard. And he did. He took it so hard that I wrote the epitaph and I wrote everything I could of the eulogy and she visited me on the night I wrote the eulogy that night in the shower of all places, Eric.

41:41 Okay, mom, I know this isn't personal, but what do you want? Gary, I want you to tell your father one thing. I said, what? Forgive yourself. Let it go. And I said, well, what the heck does that mean? He goes, tell your father to forgive himself. That was it. And anything else? I love you. That was it. My mom, whatever. It was a short transmission. I guess sometimes you have to be to the point and sometimes you have this little window and there's only certain people that can actually hear it. So I went into the kitchen and he's sitting there eating Cheerios and my dad was just eating slowly and he's very dramatic and very, you know, very stoic about his emotions.

42:28 I said, hey dad, how you doing? I'm okay. How are you? I'm fine. I said, listen, mom told me to tell you something and boy, what? Oh, this is not gonna end well. And I said, well, she told me to tell you to forgive yourself. In all my years, Eric, I've never seen my father cry before. He lost it. He said, why you? I said, what do you mean, why me? He said, how would you know? I didn't even know what I was saying. He said, I wouldn't let her go. He said, she died in my arms. I wouldn't let her go. Like, wow, that's kind of powerful, but why you?

43:11 Why you, Gary? He still didn't get the big picture. I said, well, dad, you know how some people get UHF and BHF? I get HBO. I get Heaven's Box Office. And she told me to tell you that was it. And from that point forward, he let go and he was okay. But I was also given five more things to say that night because she wouldn't let me go to bed. Well, she did that two, three in the morning. She woke me up. Gary, here's five things I want you to say at my funeral. Oh, really? I get to, okay, let's do this. So I took out, I'd already written everything that I thought I could think of, you know? And then I took five or one small piece of notepad and put it and started writing.

43:59 You know, she started telling me things. Love yourself while you can. Love others while you, you know, this stuff that just seems basic, right? You know, your time is limited, you know, don't judge other people, whatever, you know? And I was like, okay, okay, anything else? Number five, okay, there it is. What else, mom? That is it. I said, okay, well, I love you. I love you. I love you. She was gone. And that was it. And I paper clipped it and went to bed. That next day, we did the funeral and I read everything off just as well as I can.

44:40 I'm a decent writer. So I knew that there are things that people could relate to. And I said, oh, there's five more things mom told me to tell you last night. And if it was anyone else, they would have said, you're insane. But instead they went, it's Gary. Of course it's Gary. We might want to listen because he doesn't pre-barricade. There's no reason to make anything up. And he's gone through all this stuff. I said, okay, I read them off. One, two, three, five. Everyone was crying. It's like, what? I don't know what happened. I still don't know. I mean, my friend comes up to me and said, you know, me and my wife had a fight last night.

45:20 We just went on and on and on and on and on. We had no more tears to give. We were done. And you got us. You got us anyway. I said, what did he say? And he said, it's not you. It's the way you said it. I said, what do you mean? People said, yeah, it was your mother talking. We didn't hear you. I said, what? I said, anyone videotaped us? No. Oh, no. I could have to look out those notes and figure out what I said. Either way, it got everybody. And you know what happened? I went back for those notes and they were gone. I put them in my briefcase. I put them in my briefcase and took them home and they just disappeared. So for lack of a stapler, I have no idea what I said on that day.

46:04 I have no idea. But she told them what she wanted to tell. But yeah, that was pretty cool. And I had visits. In fact, when my dad died later, he and I became so close after that because he'd got it now. He'd got it. And when he died, we were talking about Houdini leaving messages. So he says, I'm going to try to do that. I said, good luck with that. Let's see who we could. And you know what he did? One time I came home and my messages were him trying to talk to me as a whisper like, very scary. But not scary to me. But scary if you just hear, carry me. That's me. I know it's you, dad. What are you trying to tell me? Because you know about EVP, right?

46:45 It left the vocal recordings or whatever they call it. So I was like, wow, he got through. And I was like, he took up the whole bloody tape. They don't have any space time. So he was just telling me what he could tell me. It's your father. Do you remember? I told you, here I am. I love you. It's your father. It's me just over and over and over. And you know, I had to do, I had to erase it. It was the only tape I had. And I was in the middle of doing recordings and stuff. I was the only way I could, that in those days, you can only house, you know, they didn't have a little, they said just one. Yeah, that real to real quarter inch tape.

47:26 I remember. So I said, dad, I told him, I said, I have to get messages from my agent, my manager and all the other people in my life. I'm just going to say I love you and goodbye. And that was it. A few more questions for you. And I'll let you go. How much fear of death do you have? Really? That's the one you got? Come on. You got another one. I have no fear of death, obviously. I just wanted to hear you say it. That's all. I didn't have any fear since day one. Why would I have a fear of death? Something I saw as a baby. And I had no preconceptions. And that's the difference between someone like you and the rest of the world.

48:07 Most people, they don't talk about it, but there is some kind of a fear of death out there because it's unknown. It's scary. Some people don't believe there is anything else. So that would be scary. What's more scary when you have preconceptions, I think, because you are trying to believe somebody else's words for what is on the other side. When you have no preconceptions, then there's no fear. I never saw anything that made me think, wow, this is really just like I heard. Nothing close to that. But everybody, it's a subjective interpretation of your own reality in a sense, isn't it? You will find what you need to learn. And so I found that healing is my forte.

48:50 I broke my toe just a couple of days ago. I laughed it off. I broke my knee last year in Cheyenne in rupture of my quads because my knee didn't go over the e-bike when I went over the e-bike, the handlebars. And I was two months in rehab and walking up snow stairs and laughing the entire time. I said, that's all you got. You know, seriously, this is just another day. So now I don't get sick and I don't feel like there's any day that I just go, I have to go out there, I get to experience this life.

49:30 It's a privilege. And I remind myself and I try to tell other people what you say to yourself is the most important thing you'll ever hear. And if you say to yourself, I can't do this or I won't do this or somebody else is controlling, then they will. You'll give them the power over you. Even when you use the H word, which I've abolished for my vocabulary, you know which one I mean, right? So why give somebody that kind of power over you? Even if you say, oh, you know, I really didn't enjoy hitting my toe on that and I broke it. Well, how do I feel about that? So why let it go? You see what I'm saying? It wasn't the table's fault. The table was sitting and going, I tried to tell you, Mara, walk around me.

50:14 I love it. All right. Question number two and last. Somebody out there today that's listening to this is either grieving the loss of a loved one. There may be grieving something that's happening to them in life. What do you have to say to them? Those entities you're grieving know it and they are with you still. They're not just in your heart and soul. They're a part of you. They know. And when you quiet your mind, your soul, your spirit, meditate, whatever, they will tell you, you'll hear them because they're constantly trying to contact us. They're always trying to do that.

50:55 But realize that they're okay. You know, that I think the hardest part is for the people left behind because we have to deal with the loss, right? So every night I say, you know, thank you to the universe in 35 languages and blow kisses to my fiance's picture on the wall and tell her I love her and I sleep like, you know, like a baby. That's awesome. I can't wait until someday I can see you and Laura back together again. That'll be fun. Well, you will, but you know, hopefully, you know, it will be at the time when you're ready. Oh, I don't mean tomorrow.

51:37 No, I don't mean that either. But I mean, we will be together because we're together now, you know, as you probably can imagine. She visits me in my dreams all the time. She plays hide and seek with me. In fact, a lot of dead people do. My own grandparents like to do that. They'll all be sitting there and I'll walk in a room and they're eating at a table and they all look at me. All the ones who have passed. They say, you can't be at our table yet. I said, come on, it's beautiful. No, no, no, you're over here. You can't join us yet. And they laugh and laugh and they go, you know what I know, you know. And he says, yeah. That doesn't sound like a fair game of hide and seek with people in the spiritual realm. They've got an advantage over you.

52:18 Yeah. But I do catch them. I'm going to try to hide in the garage where he used to live. And I saw him. I go, you know, you're not with us anymore. He goes, yeah, you got me. It's like, really? That's awesome. Gary, Laura comes as little girls and animals all the time. So she, she gets to visit me all the time. So this veil that we think is so thick between this room and the other is really very, very loose, you know, very, very small, very transparent. We just don't see it. You have to remember we're receivers that are designed to, to, to take in information. But I mean, we barely in a two mile radius of, of energy, we're maybe two inches of information that we can actually get.

53:06 And every person who is looking through their eyes like you are now is interpreting the world differently than everybody else. Because you have to. Because your brain has to make sense of everything. It's there to kind of, to kind of help you figure out what it is you're perceiving, right? But if you perceive what you desire and perceive through love, the whole world changes slightly. Gary Mahalo. You're welcome. Appreciate you being with us today. I'll have a great time. Thanks again for listening and a quick reminder to follow this podcast and take a few seconds to write a review.

53:47 It helps others to easily find us. Until next time, I wish you everything good that you're looking for in this life and the next.