Lazarus eBook Roderick Wood
Download As PDF : Lazarus eBook Roderick Wood 
My book is about my life.
I died for half an hour in February 2014 and was
brought back to life by the skills of the lifesaving team.
Since that episode my brain has activated memories
from way back, so I had to put them all down in a
book in case the memories fade . . . don’t know if
you will enjoy it but it helped me to recover . . .
Love and Light . . . .
Lazarus eBook Roderick Wood
Lazarus, The Autobiography ISBN: 9781943265589, an e-book by Roderick Wood is a most unusual true story written to document his life after suffering cardiac arrest lasting twenty-seven minutes followed by a return to relative normalcy.The author recounts his life from birth in 1962 to the present. He begins with the fact that he was the youngest of three sons of a beautiful Austrian mother and a “classic brutish Englishman” blue collar worker who was a terror after his more than occasional bouts of heavy drinking. Raised in an English council house in a tough neighborhood, he avoided letting friends know his address, loved sports, left school at sixteen, had odd jobs, joined the Royal Navy at seventeen, released at eighteen, and gradually developed into a decent football (soccer) player with berths on several teams of note. He also gradually moved into construction and developed sufficiently to make a living by combining this with football assignments. He gained a number of male and female friends, travelled extensively through much of Europe and the United States, even upon occasion visiting each of his brothers who had gained college degrees followed by important appointments, and an aunt who had married an American serviceman and moved to Houston, TX. Sporadically he drank heavily, used drugs and smoked. He had married, divorced but kept close association with his children. A somewhat unusual anatomic feature also aided his eventual entrance into acting/modelling assignments. He sums up his life in the last chapter as one with which he has been satisfied and believes that he will be back to ‘his normal self’ shortly.
Discussion: The book describes quite candidly the rather hedonistic life of a man born into a depressing situation and his successful struggle to survive and even enjoy his gradual ascension from there by involvement in professional sports, blue collar endeavors and eventually acting/modelling while acquiring a sizeable number of, perhaps somewhat unusual, acquaintances. Parenthetically, from the standpoint of basic physiologic knowledge, it is amazing that the man’s excesses did not catch up with him at a far earlier age and astounding that he even survived say nothing of the extent of his recovery.
Conclusion: A most unusual and informative story but one this reviewer did not find particularly enjoyable to read.
Product details
|
Tags : Lazarus - Kindle edition by Roderick Wood. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note taking and highlighting while reading Lazarus.,ebook,Roderick Wood,Lazarus,BookVenture,BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY General
People also read other books :
- A Traveler from Altruria W D Howells Books
- Moonfeather a short horse story Short Horse Stories Book 1 edition by Grace Anthony Children eBooks
- I Have A Secret Do I Keep It? eBook EJ Thornton
- With Love From Libby eBook Shirley Ford
- a kid guide 2 politics Sharon D Long Lauren N Long 9781449938543 Books
Lazarus eBook Roderick Wood Reviews
This publication is designed to provide a honest and personal account of the life experiences of Roderick Wood, a man like all of us, who wishes to record his memories.
We all search for answers, whether they are spiritual, religious or not. We all want to know what happens to us when we die. Is there a Heaven, a Hell? Reincarnation? Is there anything at all? These questions have plagued humanity since the beginning of time, and the author says he can’t answer them specifically, but when he dreams sometimes, he remembers things he can’t explain. Impressions of total peace and calm surround him in a comforting way he can’t fully express. When he dreams, it feels as though he is ready for his next life, for the next phase, whatever that may be. He feels satisfied with what he has achieved and is prepared for the future.
He has proved the doctors wrong. Eight months have passed since the fateful day, 12 February 2014, at the gym. With all the tremendous positive energy and prayers sent to him by friends and family, he is nearly recovered from the heart attack that nearly caused his death. It sometimes takes an incident like that— as horrific and painful as it was— to put things into perspective. Having a heart attack really made him think, about his life as it is now, and how he has lived it for all these years. Did he make the right decisions? Was he really as happy as he could have been?
With his autobiography named Lazarus, he tells of his second chance on life after “he was raised from death.” He does not focus on the incident and what happened while “dead”, but on the impact the event had on his life. We are given an autobiographical account of his life since the sixties, when he was a child. We focus on his growth, working and social life, his loves and losses and everything that shaped him to be the man he is today in his early fifties (2015).
Some crazy things happened to him. For instance an “embarrassing orgasm, what a knob! Around that time of my life, I hit it hard, doing drugs, drinking, and going to lots and lots of clubs. The weekends were all the same— a wild blur of parties and forgotten memories.”
He was proud to be part of football teams, also playing for Sussex, but he still managed to go out and do crazy things around his footballing commitments. For instance, ” I once ate a small bit of Jono’s sh.. wrapped up in tissue for a bet, and I loved to streak everywhere; I even walked into M & S and asked if they could assist me in buying a suit, while I was stark naked. Another thing I would do on a semi-regular basis was to put lit cigarettes up my a...— totally weird and crazy stuff”.
He undertook a lot of travelling to many parts of the world. It was early January 1988 when he went to Australia. He set off back home in the UK — although then, not in a mail plane. He got back to England late October and went back to his room in Worthing, where he planned to stay until he would leave again for the other side of the world.
While in Australia, Roderick worked on an oil rig just off Perth, and he became a welder’s mate for three weeks. That earned him quite a bit of money. He played football, grateful being sponsored, as it would mean he could spend another year in Australia. But he needed money; he couldn’t live off nothing. One week, a farmer— who was a supporter of the club— gave him 36 eggs, which made him laugh ; he must have been the only professional footballer to get paid in eggs! At that time he was soon to be thirty years old. Later he played for Wick for nearly ten years, had a great time, made some brilliant mates and had some good support, from both friends and family. He always had a good time in the pubs after the game, and thinking back now, he has forgotten how many football clubs and pubs he used to take his clothes off in. In his early Wick days, his then-girlfriend Sarah, used to come and pick him up so they could go out.
By that time, he was in his thirties, with a family to look after. He worked hard to keep the money coming in. He had various jobs in the construction industry. Tabitha Ritchie (sister of Guy Ritchie, who had just married Madonna that December 1993) had a big vision for a the gym and juice bar. It was to be called Naked Health, and there would be a small gym area, dance and yoga studios, and studios for ‘spinning’ on stationary bikes. He never got any money from that job, and Naked Health was gone for good. Due to Tabitha’s family, it was quite a high profile story. He was in the papers for a while due to the money owed to him by Madonna’s husband’s sister, who had spectacularly failed to open her gym. But that wasn’t the only time he was marked publicly.
He still felt like a bit of a failure, as his first chance of earning good money and getting good contacts had failed. He lost contact with Tabitha as well, who he’d liked despite the money issues, and with whom he probably would have gone out with, if he wasn’t already in a relationship. Ah yes , his relationship. Things weren’t good. He felt lonely and isolated. His marriage to Rachel was folding.
One day he was wearing a brand new Calvin Klein boxer shorts on the bed, prepared for excitement. He had everything he wanted and “wondered for a second how those boxer shorts would be coming off later— would they be kicked off as he yawned and wearily slid into this Turkish delight of a bed? Or would they be ripped off frantically while in a lustful grapple with the seductive Miss Caplin?” His friend Peter was a journalist, and he knew many varied and interesting people, one being Carole Caplin, the guru and fitness adviser to former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife, Cherie. Peter introduced him to her. So there he was, two days into a building job in North London.
His association with the health guru led him to realise that Carole, while larger than life, was a lovely, warm person whom the press had given a hard time. Roderick and his workmates knew very little about her before they started working for her. It wasn’t long before he was forced into the spotlight again, thanks to his ex-partner. She broke a story to the papers about Carole and Roderick and how she’d apparently ruined their marriage. He had left home well before his first night in Carole’s bed, and he left for very good reasons too. Carole didn’t want to be seen as a woman who had split up a marriage— even though she wasn’t that person anyway— and so she thought it would be better if he no longer went round to her flat. He understood her reasoning, but it was a bit weird— Plus, it was Carole who had first got into bed with him, not the other way around! They still speak on the phone occasionally, and he still thinks she’s a great person. More than anything, though, he has many great memories of that late spring/ early summer of 2004.
Then, even though he hadn’t had any drugs for about fifteen years, he figured he was on holiday so what the hell! It was like he was going back to his early hedonistic youth, and although he’d never taken ecstasy before, he popped two straight away and followed them up with line after line of cocaine. He vaguely remembers dancing naked in a cage in the club. He has lived a fair few places in his life, with family, friends and girlfriends, but he has great memories of living with Dabba, as it was so easy and relaxed. At that point, he still had Ryan and Freddie, his boys, most weekends. Work was a bit hit or miss, as although he had jobs in London, he had lost some of them after what his now ex- wife, had put in the paper about him and Carole.
At that point in his life, he was in a bit of a quandary. He needed more than football and work, but had no intention of getting into a serious relationship again He wasn’t going to pubs and clubs then, so he had to take a different approach to meeting women. He wanted more out of life. Even though he loved building, and had figured out how to meet women who wanted no strings attached, he needed something else, something different. By the time he’d got to his forties, he was really trying out all sorts of different things in life. He went to Graz in Austria, where he helped to put up an installation, and then actually performed on the opening night of the exhibition, doing a strip for the audience. Graz is a beautiful city and everything— including his stripping— went really well.
Roderick always had other ideas of what to do next, and bigger and better things to go onto. One day, he was contacted by Alex, a photographer who’d found him through his Star Now profile page. He was gay and a fashion designer, and had done work for several celebrities, including Nigella Lawson. He wanted him to be in his online adult magazine, ‘My Best Friend’s Dad’, and as he was interested, he went up to London to meet him. Alex outlined what was expected and agreed that he could go down to his house. He is a good guy, and guess what he wanted photos of?— after all, I had ‘ex-stripper’ listed on my profile page.
Roderick suffered from OCD which affected him in a huge way. That started when he was very young, when he thought he had to touch things constantly and dress in a certain way. He believed that if he did these things, he would be able to stop all the rows and the grief. It wasn’t long before he was totally controlled by that, and although he is 99% better now compared to how he was, he still has it deep inside himself. For one thing, he’d has to put his clothes on in a certain order, do up his laces four to five times before he goes on to the trousers, shirts, jumpers, coats and shoes. He also had to get into bed in a certain way, open and close doors in a specific manner; virtually everything he did, he had to do in some weird way. A lot of people thought Roderick was weird but he tried to laugh it off. Just recently, he has managed to get a hold on all his phobias, but some days they still rise up. He has learnt to control them now . . . just.
He was brought up Catholic, and still goes to church each and every Sunday. The church he goes to now is beautiful, with a stunning ceiling that is completely covered by an amazing painting —a reproduction of the one in the Sistine Chapel. At mass, he feels peaceful. He does believe that he is an old soul and that he has had many past lives. He strongly believes that in this universe— and in others— there is other life out there; we just haven’t found it yet. Also, he has never understood the need to have wars over religion, and he never will. What he thinks is important in this life— and what he tries to do on a daily basis— is to help whenever he can, and be nice.
It is 10 years since he left the family home and has remained single, as he thought he would. However, he has had a few women over the years. He is currently happy and full of praise for all his friends and the people who have saved his life the day at the gym when he got the heart attack. He has moved into a flat just over a year ago, and shares it with his twenty year old son, Ryan. And the next twenty-five years? Well, he does not know what he is going to do, but does know that he will enjoy it, no matter what.
Maybe do more writing or get a break with his acting, who knows? As he finishes writing this book, his mother is in a hospice. She won’t be able to read it, but he dedicates it to her. It’s been a year since the incident (heart attack) and he is nearly back to his old self. Unfortunately his fitness still isn’t as good as it was twelve months ago, but he is working on it daily and knows it will get back to what he was before.
His brain is still a bit groggy but it’s getting better every day, and he is happy to say that he can go back to driving again. As far as work goes, he could go back to building but he if he can help it, not. Instead, he has joined up with a few more acting and modelling agencies, so he hopes he can get some work in that field.
If there is anybody who has enjoyed reading his book and finds parts adaptable for a small film or a comedy TV programme, he would be delighted. He has spent a lot of time on his own this past year and has done a lot of thinking. Now he goes easy on himself and is so much more relaxed. He is looking forward to the rest of his life, and I have many plans to travel, explore and write.
Love and Light to all, and if you take just one thing from this book, he hopes it is this be happy !!!
“In February 2014, I dimmed my light for a short while, and I was out of sight. The body was still. No breath to fill. A perfect peace, An early release, But no, I did return. So all of my friends and those that prayed “My love for you , Will never fade.”
Excerpt of a poem Roderick wrote
Forever . . .
My quiet thoughts
To me appear
To search myself
For why I’m here
Are my lives
To fail and win
To grow and learn
With death begin
I ask my soul
To be so clear
To love what is
And have no fear . . .
Another excerpt of a poem
Death........
Children that you brought up
Or maybe you had none
For me there is no end
There cannot be a cease
For what’s the point of being here
A life with short term lease.....
I have found the autobiography honest and profound. Let us all reflect on the value of life and the purpose of our existence.
Scarlett Jensen
6 February 2016
The intro helped me understand his need for a memoir. As he says ‘if you were to die, so would thousands of memories and years of knowledge, hundreds of experiences and feelings and emotions.' Life is short and anything can happen at any time. This book was just a straight memoir with most thoughts starting with 'another incident l I clearly remember is …' or ‘something I could never forget is ….'
That being said he lived a very eventful life. I felt all his struggles, his exciting adventures, his joys and his sorrows. Typically you hear of a man walking out on a woman and their kids. But rarely do you hear the man's version. And it's a sad reality that sometimes it's the woman who shuts the man out from his kids' life.
He made me feel like I really would love to write a memoir too.
I found his alluding to Jon as a Jehovah's Witness odd as his facts were all wrong. For one, a Jehovah's Witness would not be telling people that they can join the 100,000 persons who will be saved because there is no such thing. So it could be that Jon was not really a Jehovah's Witness but he just like that church and said he was one of them I guess.
The poems at the end were a nice little touch.
If it's one thing I take away is that life is short so enjoy it while it last and you could start by enjoying this read.
Lazarus, The Autobiography ISBN 9781943265589, an e-book by Roderick Wood is a most unusual true story written to document his life after suffering cardiac arrest lasting twenty-seven minutes followed by a return to relative normalcy.
The author recounts his life from birth in 1962 to the present. He begins with the fact that he was the youngest of three sons of a beautiful Austrian mother and a “classic brutish Englishman” blue collar worker who was a terror after his more than occasional bouts of heavy drinking. Raised in an English council house in a tough neighborhood, he avoided letting friends know his address, loved sports, left school at sixteen, had odd jobs, joined the Royal Navy at seventeen, released at eighteen, and gradually developed into a decent football (soccer) player with berths on several teams of note. He also gradually moved into construction and developed sufficiently to make a living by combining this with football assignments. He gained a number of male and female friends, travelled extensively through much of Europe and the United States, even upon occasion visiting each of his brothers who had gained college degrees followed by important appointments, and an aunt who had married an American serviceman and moved to Houston, TX. Sporadically he drank heavily, used drugs and smoked. He had married, divorced but kept close association with his children. A somewhat unusual anatomic feature also aided his eventual entrance into acting/modelling assignments. He sums up his life in the last chapter as one with which he has been satisfied and believes that he will be back to ‘his normal self’ shortly.
Discussion The book describes quite candidly the rather hedonistic life of a man born into a depressing situation and his successful struggle to survive and even enjoy his gradual ascension from there by involvement in professional sports, blue collar endeavors and eventually acting/modelling while acquiring a sizeable number of, perhaps somewhat unusual, acquaintances. Parenthetically, from the standpoint of basic physiologic knowledge, it is amazing that the man’s excesses did not catch up with him at a far earlier age and astounding that he even survived say nothing of the extent of his recovery.
Conclusion A most unusual and informative story but one this reviewer did not find particularly enjoyable to read.
0 Response to "[LVE]⋙ Libro Gratis Lazarus eBook Roderick Wood"
Post a Comment