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I remember the time I died. I remember how it didn’t feel like death.

I had always thought of death as a dreadful thing, the infinite nightmare; the black hole that consumes everything you’ve ever had and pulls you into the bottomless pit of oblivion.

But now that I recall that one time when I lay covered in blood and grime, writhing on the crude asphalt of a midnight road. At that time, I discovered first-hand how everything they said about flashbacks and forgotten sins turned out to be true after all. I started having thoughts about my mom, my dad, my home, my life—about how they were all dead and cold and distant. Maybe in just a little while, they wouldn’t be as distant anymore.

A little dove the color of the sky settled in front of my face. It was luminescent and looked ethereal. Before then, I…