It wasn’t until I had my “vision of death” as Tammy from New York City, the self-proclaimed psychic, had termed it, that the idea of a higher power became concrete for me, although it is contradictory to state that something metaphysical can be concrete since it is supposed to be transcendent of physical limitations. That moment in my life was when I began to see signs, synchronicities, prophetic dreams, and repeating numbers, or angel numbers as some people refer to them as, among many other wonders.

Since that time, I felt that regardless of there being some dark presence in my life that was trying to overtake me at any opportune moment, there was something even greater that had taken interest in my well-being and my continued existence here on earth. The time when I was being pursued by carjackers late at night in Tampa Bay, when my instincts overrode any sense of logic, causing me to turn into a dead end almost against my own will, which turned out to be exactly the right move to ditch my pursuers in a place I didn’t know at all. The night when my old friend Jared and I went to Ybor City for the first time, met a couple of strangers who we resonated with, and they ended up being instrumental in curbing what appeared to be a possible drive-by attempt on us that night. The trip I had just gone on around half the U.S. two months earlier, where I spent my money in a multitude of different ways, which came down to the last dollar at the very end.

All of these scenarios were examples of how I felt blessed despite challenge, an unknown situation, or threat to my safety, but now, being trapped up in the Sandia Mountains alone in the middle of a blizzard, it seemed that whoever or whatever may have been protecting me had abandoned me to die up here, or it was all a delusion from the start, and I was in fact alone the entire time. Either way, none of it mattered now, because I was sure this was the end of the road for me.

As I lay on my side on the mountain summit, completely surrendering to what seemed to be my inevitable death, something unexpected happened. The air had been more or less still as I hiked up and across the mountain, but not long after I laid down due to a conglomeration of issues resulting from me not being prepared for what this long and arduous hike truly demanded, a sudden gust of wind blew across the desert sky and began to blast my face, causing me to open my eyes.

“What is going on? The air had been so calm until now. Why can’t I die in peace???” I thought to myself.

Was this a sign for me to continue on? I had no energy left to continue with, so how was I supposed to keep trudging through the knee-deep snow and somehow find a path that led back down the mountain? I got up and began to walk again, as it seemed like death wasn’t going to be as comfortable as I thought, but within only a few minutes I had given up again and crashed back down into the deep snow. It was like trying to operate a vehicle that had run out of gasoline. It might let out a few short bursts of motion, but the fact that it’s out of fuel is a reality that can’t be overlooked.

For the second time, as I lay in the snow after giving up on life, the cold wind picked up and stung me right in the face again. Whether or not this was being directed at me by a form of intelligence, the wind was pushing against me at very specific times, causing disruption of my eternal sleep. I stood back up, looking down on Albuquerque thousands of feet below me at the bottom of the valley.

“I need to get off this mountain,” was the only thought I had enough energy left to produce.

Since the trails seemed to go on indefinitely, I decided that the only way down was to blaze my own trail on a section of the mountain that wasn’t too steep and hope it didn’t lead to a sudden drop-off, which would truly leave me finished.

Without any energy, it was sheer willpower that kept me going. Much like how a zombie is a creature that is animated after death, I felt the same way, as though I was mindlessly pursuing my objective to get back to the bottom like they pursue brains. The gradually sloping mountainside provided me with a slope that I could run down at times, through the snow, past rocks, and through trees, but it was all momentum, and none of it was muscle power. My sense of thirst gave me the idea to shovel snow into my mouth at times, but there was no cure for my hunger or lack of energy. The cold was something I learned to live with.

After reaching the bottom of the mountain while going my own way, which could’ve taken up to two hours, my only thought now was of refueling.

I walked on a gradually curving trail near the base of the mountains in between fenced-off yards with “Keep out” signs in what seemed like a very backwoods section of the city. I dragged my feet along until I reached a small restaurant named Burger Boy, which was conveniently located near the base of the mountain on a road I didn’t even know existed.

After having a seat inside of the restaurant, not telling anyone who worked there anything about the trek I had just endured, I felt fortunate just to be alive and to rejoin civilization. I ordered a burger and fries to eat, and nothing ever tasted so good as it did at that moment. They could have served me the worst food ever and it still would have been absolutely delicious. Even fried okra would have made my mouth water.

While  eating, I looked at the clock and estimated that I had been in the mountains for eight hours. Eight hours is certainly not a long time to be on a hike, but under those specific conditions, it was definitely a struggle to stay alive. My reason for staying alive, right or wrong, was that someone out there didn’t want me dead yet. I had only one problem left now — getting back to my vehicle and getting enough rest before work, which was only a few hours away.

After finishing my much needed meal at Burger Boy, though still feeling exhausted, I felt I had enough fuel to continue walking back to my vehicle, which was still parked in a neighborhood miles away from where I was, not far from where I first started this perilous journey.

I walked down Highway 14 until I reached Interstate 40, which was the main roadway that traveled through Albuquerque and had the most traffic passing through. The sun had reached a point in the sky where the initial signs of the sunset could be seen as an orange hue began to color everything. Dozens of vehicles sped by me each minute as I walked on the side of the interstate attempting to reenter the city.

I kept my mind on the present, because it would be very discouraging to think about how far I had yet to go to finally put an end to this journey. As I just came around past the Sandia Mountains, a young couple pulled over to the side of the road just behind me and asked me if I needed a ride, to which I gladly affirmed.

“I saw you walking on the side of the road. I know how it is,” said the young gentleman.

I did my best to fill the time we had together with conversation to make them feel less awkward about having a stranger in their vehicle with them. There is always a risk when picking up strangers, and I didn’t want to give them the impression that they had reason to worry about me. I think regardless of doing my best to make them feel at ease, there was a part of them that still felt cautious, because when I got into my van and started to drive, they pulled over to the side of the road, and I drove right past them. One or both of them may have been concerned that I was going to try and follow them, but the only thing I was thinking about was getting back home and getting some rest before work. Thanks to the young couple, I would at least have about two hours of rest before going in for a full eight-hour shift.

“You’re crazy!” my coworker Greg said as he shook his head when I told him the full story of what happened in the break room.

I guess his imagination was good enough that he could completely imagine what I went through during that eight-hour struggle. I didn’t want to come in to work, but I didn’t think calling in and saying, “I almost died in the mountains. Can I have tonight off?” would be appreciated by my foreman. He was already hard to deal with without giving him any other reason to get on my case. He was trying to push me to be at a level of efficiency with the job that I had to work into, and I refused to say “How high?” when he said “Jump!”

My chosen way of resisting was usually obstinance rather than confrontation. David, the foreman, knew I only had a limited time before he could fire me due to union policy, so he wanted to establish who was in control while there was still time. He was starting to see that I wasn’t going along with it, and was starting to have second thoughts about me working at Sara Lee. It’s true that I wasn’t the most inspired worker at Sara Lee because I didn’t know where my life was heading, as this was all uncharted territory for me, but I wasn’t a bad worker either. I showed up when I was supposed to each day, did my job as best as I could and was detailed about it, though not at a pace the shell shocked former sergeant wanted.

The next day, the snow that was isolated to the top of the mountain began to blanket Albuquerque, which was the first snow of the year. If that snow had come a day sooner, I probably never would have taken the hike, but I do not regret the experience, since I survived to tell the story. It was a test of both physical strength and faith, and somehow I had barely managed to pass. If I hadn’t been inspired by The Wolf to dramatically increase my push-up repetitions, who knows if I would have had the resilience to make it back? We can always choose our friends, but we don’t always get to choose our allies. If I would have judged him for his past, and sometimes present, and not allowed myself to be influenced by his more favorable qualities, I may not have had the strength to pass this test.