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Fire Up Your Life is a true story about a series of events that happened after the author answered no to four questions during a fiery plane crash.
- Do you love yourself?
- Do you have a good relationship with your family and friends?
- Are you living your goals and dreams?
- If you die today, have you left this planet a better place for being here?
If you cannot answer yes to all four questions, then
Fire Up Your Life is a must read...
Seconds before dying, a near death experience seals her destiny and gives her the courage to live. Then, a traumatic visit to crash survivors in the burn ward kindles her fight to reform airline safety regulations.
George, a mystical wise man from her past is the force behind the author's decision to leave her Hollywood lifestyle, buy a house with no money down and launch an international speaking career. He makes sense of the pain we all experience in life, connects the inner self with outside reality and helps the reader embrace the highest part of who they really are.
By the time the author is forty-eight and still single, George has passed away of cancer. The reader has an opportunity to decide whether George was truly a wise man, a mentor, or an angel when his spirit manifests in a hospital corridor while the author is adopting a baby girl.
 Take a few minutes to read an excerpt
5:58 AM
March 1, 1978
Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
Wake-Up Call
"No!No! No! No!" A bloodcurdling scream woke me. it was my scream! Can't breathe. My head jolted off the pillow. Beads of sweat dripped from my hair.
"AAAIIIEEE" My hands flew to my ears, pressing harder and harder to block out the noise. Stop! Stop! Go away. Leave me alone! It's the phone. The phone. It's the phone.
Slowly picking it up. "Hi sweetie, it's Mary Margaret. This is your wake-up call and good wishes for your trip."
Gasping for air. "Th-th-thanks."
"Donna, are you alright?"
"It was that dream, that same dream. It was so real. I'm limping away from a burning aircraft. The fire. the flames."
The faces. The people, they're trapped. The fence..
"Calm down Donna. Your life hasn't been that great lately but you're going to Hawaii. The islands have always been good to you. Hey, you were Miss Hawaii."
"You're right. I guess you're right."
I willed my body out of bed, all the time mumbling to myself. A shower. Wash away this foreboding feeling. The hot, steamy water pounded my shoulders. My mind still churning like it was on spin cycle. Suddenly an uncontrollable, primal sound erupted from my throat.
"Let my life change! Let it never be the same! Or let me die!"
_________________________
9:22 AM
March 1, 1978
Los Angeles International Airport
Continental Flight 603
Chapter One
Love and Accept Yourself
At a speed of 167 miles per hour, three tires blew. I was plunged into paralyzing terror when the unexpected happened on take-off. A powerful jolt slammed my body forward so tight against the seat belt, I felt severed at the waist. Bounced and rocked, surrounded by screeching crash sounds, I heard an ear splitting crack as one wing clipped the tarmac and shattered. The lumbering DC-10 aircraft, heavily laden with fuel, jerked violently. My breath jammed in my throat and the bitter taste of horror invaded my mouth. I was going to die.
Pandemonium was everywhere: brittle sounds of the plane's cabin breaking apart, panels popping from the ceiling at crazy angles. I cringed at the sight of loose luggage flying through the air and bouncing off panicked passengers. A darkened movie screen collapsed in a heap.
A flight attendant screamed, "Tighten your seat belts! Tighten your seat belts!" Then, another attendant yelled,
"Head between your knees - grab your ankles! Head between your knees - grab your ankles!"
Before I ducked my head, I glanced terrified out the window. We were racing along the runway toward the rental car lot crammed with vehicles. My heart pounded in my chest at an accelerated rate. Eerie silence plagued the entire cabin as I witnessed the fear of death frozen on the faces around me. I dropped my head down, gripped my ankles, and immersed myself in a strange union of dread and anticipation. I was going to die.
I had heard your life passes before you when you are at deaths door. My life had been such a mess. I didn't want to see it. I had suppressed a childhood afflicted by family alcoholism and violence. At six, I was hospitalized with malnutrition and at sixteen my dream of becoming an Olympic skier was scraped by a heart catheterization. In my twenties, I hated my body and battled with diet pills and bulimia. The symptoms were vomiting, fasting, and binging. Career? I had no career. I was floundering with financial woes that haunted me. The men I loved rejected me, and my deepening sense of unworthiness kept me on the brink of suicide. Now, at last, my wish would come true. In a matter of seconds, I was going to die.
The aircraft was hurtling off the end of the runway with a load of passengers and a belly filled with lethal fuel. Then the unthinkable happened, an all-encompassing calm descended upon me. Overcome by a rush of warmth and euphoria, I succumbed to a sensation of profound tranquility. A serene calm blanketed me with a feeling of protection. At no time in my life had I felt such love. I wondered, is this what it was like to die? Was this the mysterious culminating grace, or a normal reaction before death streamed down darkness? Did my fellow passengers feel insulated from their fate by peace and unconditional love? Did they also hear what I perceived to be an inner voice speaking to me in a most obtrusive way?
You were given this life.
What have you done with it?
You can choose to die or ...
You can make a difference!
As the plane skidded and bounced, I was forced to question my existence on earth. I heard the screech of metal tearing along the left side of the aircraft. Crash sounds intensified to a deafening clatter. Seconds before slamming into the fenced-in rental car lot, the plane skidded and ground to a halt. My neck snapped back and my hands flew from my ankles. The aircraft burst into flames and I was entombed in silence. No one said a word. The silence was eerie. I was going to die.
The left side of the cabin was already engulfed in flames. The right fuselage was slanted upward, as if someone had jacked it up twenty feet in the air. Flames billowed outside my window. What remained of the left wing was swallowed up in smoke, yet, I sat suspended in a state of bliss. My shield of energy encompassed me.
A flight attendant shouted,
"Come to the rear! Come to the rear!" Frightened passengers swarmed into the aisle to save themselves. Like a remote-controlled robot, I unbuckled my seat belt and shuffled into the crowd. I collided against bodies whose only care was to escape before the plane exploded and sealed them inside. When I reached the end of the sixth row, I spied the exit door, but before I could reach it, the pushing from behind popped me out of line like a gumball from a vending machine. I tumbled head first onto the tilted cabin floor and slid helplessly on my stomach toward the gaping exit door and the raging blaze outside.
Heat seared my skin, smoke assaulted my lungs, and savage flames engulfed the entire rear exit of the cabin. If this was hell, I wanted out. Fool, I anguished, it's too late for you. Prepare yourself for a slow and painful death. Suddenly, when there was nothing more than air to prevent me from falling, I stopped. I stared mesmerized at the wall of flames. Again, I heard the calming inner voice.
Do you love yourself?
Do you have a good relationship
with your family and friends?
Are you living your goals and dreams?
If you die today, have you left this
planet a better place for being here?
I lay sprawled on my stomach, hands stretched out before me, transfixed by a toxic bonfire. Sweat streaming down my face, I screamed, No no no no! Inches from my body, a burst of red-orange flames seared my skin and left me gasping. When I was only seconds from death, it came, an urgency to fight for life. I needed more time to love and redeem myself. Time to make things right. I yelled,
"I want to live!"
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