January/February 2005 Spirituality
Possible Fatal

by Joanie Thurston with Wally Johnston

Joanie Thurston, suffering from severe sleep deprivation, started to drive home at about 4:00 a.m. on the morning of May 13, 1997. She rested her eyes for just a moment at the stop sign at SE Lincoln waiting for northbound traffic on SE Grand Avenue in Portland, Oregon. That's the last she remembers until she finds herself floating in the night sky over an accident at Clay and Grand, five blocks north of Lincoln where she rested her eyes. Witnesses reported that she was driving 40-45 mph, head back, eyes closed, as if asleep. Nearing SE Clay the car turned sharply to the right, jumped the curb and struck a light pole.

While being fascinated by the activities as traffic started backing up due to her crash, she was pulled through an opening in the sky and into a beautiful garden of flowers and butterflies. From that garden she was taken on a goodbye visit to several friends around the US. She was shown a review of eleven times when she might have died--starting with a cesarean delivery in which she was expected to be DOA. After the review of each of the first ten experiences she was told, "We were there."  At the eleventh scene, the crash at Clay and Grand, she was told forcefully, "And you still don't get it!!"

Joanie lost the fight to stay in her garden of flowers. She was sent back, very much against her will, into a crushed, torn and pain-wracked body. While on the other side she was ordered to "tell her story and make it common knowledge."  She accepted that assignment, but when she tried to organize her memories, it became an impossible struggle. On each attempted recall she was pulled back in time as she re-lived the experience. The result was total emotional and physical exhaustion.

Joanie was also terrorized by the idea that she might be crazy, but her daughter thought Joanie had had an NDE, a Near-Death Experience. She discovered the local chapter of IANDS (International Association for Near-Death Studies), which she attended sporadically. There she met Wally Johnston. Together they discovered that he could interview and record Joanie's memories without the emotional and physical exhaustion she suffered when attempting to write in isolation. A book started getting itself written with Wally as the co-author.

To get the entire story, they had to dig up traumas that Joanie had been burying since the age of three when a horrifying event left her feeling empty, unworthy and unacceptable. For the next 49 years Joanie was a chameleon, struggling to make herself acceptable, to become the person she thought other people would like and accept. But she never felt loved or accepted. The crash changed her completely.

In the garden she felt unconditional love emanating from the flowers, and especially from the butterflies. How wonderful to be loved without having to earn it! Then she saw a friendly little girl with an impish smile standing in the garden. She loved her immediately, before she realized that she was meeting her own self, her fighting spirit, her inner child, the child she was before being devastated. Joanie finally accepted herself, and that made her life totally different. She had been unable to perceive that others loved her until she was able to believe that she was lovable.

Hitting the light pole changed Joanie in other ways. She was severely limited in physical activities. Her fingers no longer remembered how to find the piano keys to play her favorite tunes. She discovered frightening psychic abilities. Joanie realized that she came back without grudges or resentments, as if they had been erased on the other side. She had no need to judge others, or to control them. She gave up trying to steer the world where she wanted it to go and began to let the universe unfold as it would. Joanie returned with a different personality and a changed attitude. She valued relationships rather than possessions and achievements.

The "coincidences" in this story are uncanny. Her physical survival is a miracle. (Her heart was kept going by hand compression for twenty minutes and the resuscitation lasted more than 90 minutes.) The crash radically changed the direction of her life. The self-examination required to tell the story gave meaning to her life. It resulted in self-acceptance and enthusiasm for living, even in a pain-filled body. She still wonders sometimes exactly what that voice meant when it said, "And you still don't get it!" She thinks she's "got it" now, at least most of it.

To order the book, send check or Money Order to: Acorn Endeavors, PO Box 301056, Portland, OR 97294. $13.00 (Three or more, $10 each, incl. postage in US.) Contact: wallyjohnston1@comcast.net or go to www.possiblefatal.com.