My Guardian Spirit (SWC)
"Supernatural Writing Contest" My Guardian Spirit (SWC)
Picture Source: https://pixabay.com/en/angel-figure-sitting-1752810/
This is a touchy subject for me as I normally don’t openly speak about personal experiences with the supernatural and ancestral beliefs. When dealing with cultural and religious differences in this day and age, sometimes the silent approach is best, to not receive criticism. There is a first time for everything I suppose and why not let it be for the steemit familia.
In my native culture it is of the highest respect to be bestowed as the name sake of an elder (grandparent). Or in plain terms, to be named after your grandfather or grandmother. To most that wouldn’t mean much. It would be just an internal family thing that they thought would be cool at the time. But in my culture, your native name that has not changed or deviated in its pronunciation, over 100s of years is a great honor.
The name sake carries great weight as it had survived 100s of years of colonialism, persecution, and it also identifies my ancestors ranking within their ancient culture. We were once great leaders and chiefs, but over the centuries the old ways had been wiped out, and the only thing we were left with was our names. That is one thing that no one can take away from us.
Growing up I had a loose interpretation of what the name sake was. I was just a kid and all I wanted to do was ride my bike in the forest and come home when it was time for dinner. I was told stories about the name sake and how it was only passed down from grandfather to grandson. That’s how far back it went. It skipped a generation. My mom had waited till I got older and she told me the special relationship the name possessed.
The name had actually linked me not only in name, history, and rank, but it held a connection between myself and the previous name sakes over the years. It extended in physical form as well as spiritual. I was never told at what capacity the spiritual side encompasses, but my grandmother always told everyone, that I was my grandfather’s favorite. Personality wise, I was his splitting image.
I think I was 9 years old when I was faced with my first near death experience. My brother and I were stubborn and hard headed. But who wasn’t at that age? We had a lot of 70 year old Norfolk Pine Tree growing in our yard, and my brother and I would try to climb all the way to the top just to see if we can knock down the Pine Cones. For a young kid that was our way of making money over the summer. Pine Cone seeds could be dried out and sold by the pound. So it was good money for a 9 year old.
One day we climbed the tree, and we almost got to the top, when we noticed a car passing by, and it had stopped in front of the tree. We knew they didn’t want us so high in the tree. We didn’t want to get in trouble as back then, we would get a leather belt to our back side for being mischievous.
We started climbing down the tree as fast as our little hands and feet could take us. I remember rushing and not looking at the branch carefully before stepping on it. It was a dead branch and it gave way. I remember it vividly. In a matter of seconds, I had fell out of the tree, and I blacked out. I don’t remember hitting any branches on the way down. I had no bruises or scars on me. The next thing I recall was hanging on the last branch calling for help. My stupid older brother was laughing the whole time. Talk about insult to injury. To almost die and have your own flesh and blood laugh at you when you’re begging for help.
How could this happen? A little kid fell out of a Norfolk Pine Tree, not remember the fall, but wakes up hanging on the last branch before impact? Some call it luck, others call it an act of god. Whatever it was I’m sure glad it went my way. Maybe there was something that I couldn’t see? Or just couldn’t understand it at the time because of my innocence?
Picture Source: 
My next near death experience comes 30 years later. I was driving my motorcycle at night. It was at raining with poor visibility. My friend was riding on the back seat, and we were trying to make it home to get out of the rain. Then all of a sudden we both hear a loud thump, and both of us went blank for the next few hours.
Apparently, in a third world country, when a car breaks down on the side of the road and they’re performing repairs, instead of setting up flares or a legal sign to warn oncoming traffic, they instead use their spare tire and leave it on the road to force traffic to the side. These fools had done repairs during the day and decided to leave the spare on the road.
The next thing I remember was waking up and rolling on the ground trying to crawl to my buddy who had gotten ejected from the back seat and was thrown several yards from me. He had a broken leg, I had a fractured leg. To make a long story short, they took my friend away in an ambulance, and I had declined for assistance. Why did I decline any help? I knew the cops would steal my bike if I had left it there. Most of you would say, I’m nuts to think that way. But guess what happened to my friend that was taken to the hospital? They laid him out in the holding area, where the paramedics stole his shoes and helmet.
I remember watching them take my friend into the ambulance and he begged me to go to the hospital. I stood there and watch them drive off. That’s where I passed out and laid on the right side of the road for the next few hours.
As I laid there bleeding with a few fractures in my right leg. I spun in and out of consciousness. I could hear a voice. Not sure if it was me internally yelling at myself, or a crowd of people in the background demanding that I wake up. I remember someone yelling at me to get up for a long time, and it got to the point, where it wasn’t will power that got me up, it was more like irritation. Before I opened my eyes, I swear I could smell an odor that I hadn’t smelled in a long time. Even though my eyes were shut, and I had a concussion, the nose doesn’t lie. My grandfather gave off a distinct body odor, and I had not smelled it since the last time I saw him before he had gotten surgery for brain tumors. It was distinctly different and only he permeated that body odor.
Eventually I got up, and drove the bike back home, where I called a friend of mine who was a retired military medic, to come and check on me. Yes, I did have a fractured leg and foot. I now suffer from PTSD from the whole ordeal.
Picture Source: https://www.motorcyclenews.com/news/2012/october/oct2612-first-on-scene/
Three years have passed since the accident and the thought has not left me as to what willed me to get up that day. As I think about it more, there are other trying times in my life where I didn’t have the will power to go on, but had that extra push from unseen forces. Call it what you want, but I know in my heart who and what it was. If you don’t believe in the spirit world, or my culture, I think everyone can agree that a simple memory of a passed love one can move mountains, guide your hand to a strong branch, or give you an ear full to get your bleeding body off the pavement.
In closing these experiences have opened my eyes to new possibilities. There will always be someone there to push me through my darkest hours. I find new chapters in my life as these near death experience have brought a bigger understanding of myself and world that surrounds me. There is so much more to explore. As my motto states way before I wrote this piece of literature, “LIFE IS A JOURNEY, AND HAPPINESS COMES FOR THE EXPERIENCES WE SHARE WITH OTHER”.