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From my left
side the nurse said, "I can't get her blood pressure."
I could feel
her trying to detect a pressure. The resident was trying on my right arm.
Finally the nurse said, "I can't get it."
"&%$@!," the resident exclaimed.
With that last
word, everything changed. Finally, I found that the pain had a limit and
that I had been released. I felt a sensation in my stomach like a person
feels when dropping down from a roller coaster peak. This type of
"butterflies-in-my-stomach" feeling was a fleeting ripple inside of me. I
was then looking down from above the left foot area of my bed. The distance
from my bed was as though I was against the ceiling corner. I could see the
backs of the staff to the left of my bed and the faces of my doctors and the
Filipino nurse.
I was
exasperated with them and with my futile attempt to connect with them. I had
no strong feelings about my body lying on the bed. It was almost unfamiliar
to me.
I just remained
there with a sense of hovering for what felt like forever. It was really
only for seconds or minutes I suppose but time did not make any sense. Time
did not seem to apply. It seemed irrelevant. It was unattached to anything,
the way I was. Time is only relevant when it is relative to the normal
orderly sequential aspects of life. So I was there for a moment or for
eternity. I cannot say but it felt like a very long time to me. I was aware
that I was separate from my body yet somehow I continued to exist. The part
of me that existed did not have anything to do with my body. I was
completely comfortable and no longer in any pain. All of the distress I was
in while lying in my hospital bed was gone. I felt like I was bobbing about
in a warm bath.
While I was at
the hospital room ceiling I was somewhat stationary. Now I was in motion. I
was proceeding slowly in an upward and outward direction, slightly angled to
the left. I was aware of being surrounded but I didn't know by what or by
whom. At first it just seemed like a foggy grayness about me. As the speed
of my upward and outward movement increased, the enclosing fog seemed to
have a bright ending at the distance. I remember at the early moments of
moving ahead through this enclosure a brightness to my left where I could
see through the cloud-like tunnel. Beyond the walls of my tunnel was a
shimmering, glowing light. The light contained an infinite number of specks
within it. The specks were moving about. Some specks were going fast, some
slow. They were all going in different directions yet none ever touched or
impacted with each other. The only comparison I can draw with what I saw was
what a person can see if you look into a sunbeam. It looked like the dust
particles that ride within a sunbeam. I remember smiling to myself (or
at least having a happy, knowing feeling) that I was akin to these
specks and they were journeying as I was between realities.
I was also very
aware of being helped through this transition. I was in the company of an
innumerable amount of others who were just like me. It was as though they
were family ... that I didn't know or I had forgotten. They knew all about
me and were there to celebrate, comfort, ease and move me ahead. There was
no sense of recognition but I knew they were there to help.
My tunnel
structure thinned along the sides but the light ahead was beckoning me. I
was intensely attracted to reaching the light. As the sides of the tunnel
became clearer, the light ahead became brighter and closer as my speed
increased.
The level of
joyous anticipation I was feeling was indescribable. At this point I had no
insight into what any of this was about. I did not think I was dead. I knew
I felt like a spirit or a disembodied person. I knew that the real "I"
continued to exist in the absence of my earthly body. I had a sense of
heightened knowing, of peace and of assured expectancy.
As I neared the
warm, glowing radiance ahead of me, I felt pure ecstasy. I was in the
beginning of the light. I was part of the light. The light was part of me
... but the light was more. Somehow I knew there was more ahead but for now
I could go no further because something was about to take place. I felt as
if I had returned to something I knew before. It was as if I had come home.
I had come home to the beginning of not just me but the beginning of all
eternity. This is so hard to explain but it seems so important. The only
thing this compares to in a way is the way it feels when it is a beautiful
warm night and you look up into the clear starry sky.
When you look
at the stars, there is an awe of the glimpse at the beginning of infinite
space. It was like that feeling as I savored my experience.
During this
experience, time had no meaning. Time was an irrelevant notion. It felt like
eternity. I felt like I was there an eternity. No remnants of the tunnel
remained. There was no cloud or fog. The light was pure and all-good. I
needed nothing, I wanted nothing. I was in communion with all the light
around me. The specks, the others and I were all part of the light that
existed forever. I felt I had an infinite sense of knowing, of understanding
it all. I was completely at ease.
Then from
within the light was a message. I received communication. I have no idea
from where or how it came to me. There was no person there. No words were
spoken. The thought was there for me to receive and accept. I was being
reminded of my responsibility to my two children. I had the beginning of a
notion to disagree ... somehow. I did not want anything to change yet I
could feel that a change had already begun. I no longer felt that something
wonderful was just ahead for me. I was being "told" benevolently yet firmly
of my duty. This message was the final word ... it was all there was to
communicate. I remember feeling a strain to hold onto my experience, I
wanted to disagree while at the same time knowing it was pointless. I knew
that from within the greatest part of all light was the complete wisdom that
directed me. I felt like being a very small child whose loving parent
insists and directs the tired child to bed. The directive was the only
point. I had to go.
At this moment,
I had one last type of communication with this powerful part of the light.
Suddenly, I saw it all. I saw me as I was as a baby, a child, a teen, and
adult, all at once. At the same time, I saw everything I ever did,
everything I ever thought, everything. I saw events and people in my life
that I previously considered important. Also, I saw many things that
seemed-not-so important. I was aware of everything in my life all at once
and I was aware of every response that others had to what occurred in my
life. It was all there for me to understand ... everything "good", "bad", or
"indifferent."
For example, I
remembered knowing deeply about a situation that I dealt with in first grade
as a six-year-old child. I was in class and it was a few minutes before
recess. Sister Celine had positioned three holy cards on the edge of her
desk in the front of the room. The holy cards were to be awarded after
recess in the spelling bee that our class would have. I was at the front
desk and could see the holy cards well. The one in the middle depicted a
gossamer guardian angel watching over two small children crossing a bridge.
I wanted that card so badly. As we filed out for recess, temptation overtook
me and I stole the holy car. I slipped it quickly into my uniform pocket. No
one saw me. During recess, I felt sick with guilt. I snuck back into the
classroom while the other first graders were playing at recess and placed
the holy card back on Sister's desk.
In my
near-death experience I remembered everything about that situation. What was
really impressive, though, is that I was aware how very wrong that action
was. Although I had made amends I "knew" of Sister Celine's dismay at having
the card taken. I "knew" that other children saw only two cards on the desk
for the spelling be, not three. What I really "knew" was that my action
carried repercussions that affected many others.
This is the way
my life was reviewed. I was deeply aware and had profound insight into
everything in my life and all of my dealings with others from my birth on to
the moment of my near-death experience. All those in the light were witness
to this review of my entire life. I was enveloped in a loving feeling and
given insight into areas of my weaknesses. I suddenly realized aspects of my
life that were not compatible with eternity in the light. I also knew now
how to correct this. I was charged with the accountability of the remainder
of my life.
I knew that
more was ahead in the light that continued forever but I could not go there
now. Seeing my life left me with the impression that my life mattered and
was somehow significant as to how far I could go into the light. My work was
not yet finished and my work was to begin inside me and within my family.
I was able to
concede to my impending return now that I fully understood the message.
Then
I was given a "gift" to ease my return ... or at least that is
how I interpreted this at the time. As the brightness began to
dull, the image of my two children were merged into my spirit.
As I held their love in me, I returned to my body in the
hospital bed.
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