146 the rice diet renewal
sidewalk near an art fair. It moved me to tears, a feeling that came
from a very deep place within me. I was overwhelmed with a pro-
found experience of the Spirit; I felt overcome by unconditional
love for my friend and her friend, who not only sang the deepest
Irish hymn you could imagine but also transported me through
his voice to the funeral that I could not attend. The unconditional
love of that song, from that man, in that moment, let me transcend
time, space, and the emotional extremes of a mother ’ s greatest fear
of losing her only son, while experiencing God ’ s greatest love — the
unconditional love that truly heals everything in the instant it is
realized. It was one of those “ wow ” experiences.
Within a few hours, my dear friend took me to meet Wendy
Whitson, her favorite Asheville artist, who, soon after her son ’ s
death, had painted and delivered to her an impressionistic paint-
ing of a forest fi lled with trees. Her painting, like the others we
marveled at in the studio, not only had exquisite beauty, color, and
proportion, but on closer inspection I was awed by the depth of the
tree trunks, which were covered and textured with glued - on strips
of sheet music, and topped with mica fl ecks she had collected by
hand in the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. The trees bespoke life,
life with depth, laced with song, substance, and beauty beyond
words. Now, as if this was not enough mind - , heart - , and spirit -
expanding joy for one day, I had the pleasure of discovering who
Wendy Whitson really is and where she came from. Fortunately, she
agreed to share how she used her near - death experience to catapult
her into the life she really wanted to live. Her story illustrates how
an artist who didn ’ t think she was good enough to paint profession-
ally went from framing other people ’ s art to creating masterpieces.
The last really bad “ episode ” was seven years ago. Wow. Not
breathing. When I describe an asthma attack, I tell people:
breathe in deeply and hold it. Now breathe in again while
you ’ re still holding the fi rst breath. You see, there ’ s no room
for air. It is the most terrifying feeling.
I had been a pretty creative child and graduated from East
Carolina with a degree in art. After college, I had a number