We were with friends for the weekend. I am 52 and as a female of that age, I spent the last month working out harder and avoided alcohol, caffeine and sugar. I do not smoke or do drugs. We started the evening fine and one friend started pouring shots. I did 4. A sugar filled shot. I still felt fine.

This friend uses marijuana on a daily basis. I don't like it, never have and certainly don't condone it but this was a private home and he is an adult. Some of the friends took their share of his pipe. He knows my feelings on it. As the night went on, but still fairly early he came over and said, come on everyone else took one. I thought, OK, one and done. I took a drag off the pipe and immediately felt odd. My heart raced and I felt like my body was paralyzed. I asked to be taken to bed. I lost all track of time from then on. But I laid on the bed and asked my husband not to leave me.

I remember breathing rapidly; then all a sudden the blood draining from my face, and trying to move my hands and not being able to. The only word I could use to describe how I felt was gray. Like my body went gray, like a cigarette burns the paper, the gray went from my head to my entire body.

My husband told me that I stopped breathing, and he watched my chest stop moving. and that my face went gray and he said I immediately looked 100 years old. My face went gray and hollow.

It seemed like seconds, but at that time I was traveling in a tunnel--very dark and, to me, claustrophobic. The light was bright and got brighter and brighter. I saw no faces. and can't say I "heard" voices but clearly was told "we love you more here." And I remember thinking, if I died that night or that way, the guilt would kill my friends. And I said, "I can't die this way. I am 52. Not now. Please." And I begged to please be sent back. And I said, "I can make him love me that way." I am not sure if I felt love like Christ-like. A part of me worried it was Satan, to be honest. I worried that the devil was trying to take me and promise me a better love to trick me. I am a Christian, but not a perfect one. I don't doubt I will go to heaven, but I am a worrier and that has crossed my mind.

I asked my husband if he heard me saying, "please send me back," over and over, in a raspy crying voice. He did not. But he felt my body and saw me die, as he said, and then he shook me to wake me up. I woke up as if I was surfacing a body of water. I could not breathe, but was not gasping for air. I was numb. I finally surfaced the black tunnel, and he said I gasped for air as I woke and kept saying to him, "Its ok, I can love you." He asked what I meant and I said, "He said it's OK." And when he asked who, he said my eyes went back and up to the ceiling. He kept asking who, and I just said, "He did; it's OK."

Had my husband not been there, I might not be here or ever have told a soul. But on our way home yesterday, after no mention of it at all, I said, "So let's talk about Friday night." He said, "Holy crap, Hon...I am not sure what you mean, but I swear I think you died. I saw you die. I am 100% sure you were dead for a few seconds." And we discussed what he saw and what I felt. It's very scary and surreal. And I worry or wonder more what the message is. What am I to learn from this? Why me? Why was I allowed to come back? And I do worry, why didn't they take me? Even though I begged to come back. Like, am I worthy to be there?  As it's still so new and raw and real, its just hard to figure out. I am glad my husband was there. I just wish we both knew what to do with this experience.