Most people would call what happened to me a “near-death” experience, I suppose.  Afterall, I am alive to write about it, three and a half months later.

When I think of what it is like to nearly die, I think about the time that crazy person driving the semi nearly ran me off the interstate at eighty or so miles an hour.

What I experienced three and a half months ago was my heart stopping after I lost two liters of blood, my consciousness going somewhere else, then returning.

The physical experience was this: I was lying flat on my back in the recovery room following the cesarean birth of my stillborn son, which you can read about here.  My sister sat beside me holding my hand, a single nurse sat on the other side of me, looking at her computer screen.  The atmosphere was relaxed, and I felt fine.  Then, without warning, I felt super weak and disoriented.  I heard me sister call my name, but I couldn’t turn my head or even move my eyes to look at her.  I heard my own voice in my head whisper a single word. Help.

From a distance, I felt awareness that my sister was calling to me, and then I was gone.

The physical part is easy to describe.  Weakness, disorientation, and gone.  It did not hurt.  It was only scary when I tried to communicate with my sister and couldn’t, but that fear was gone almost as soon as it came.

The non-physical is much harder to put into words.  Words are for this world.  Communication and experience without my body was instantaneous and symbolic.  Oneness with the light.  Pure love.  Total contentment and safety, much like I imagine it felt inside mother’s womb.  A decision to be made – I could have ended this life, but I chose to continue.  And then I was back in my body, still disoriented, but less weak.

The atmosphere was tense.  There were half a dozen nurses around me, working on me, while my sister cried silently near my head.  The nurse who had been monitoring the computer held up a fist full of four large pills.  She told me they had to be inserted rectally to help stop the bleeding and helped me roll over so she could insert them.  I don’t know what the other four nurses were doing because all of my attention was suddenly focused on the head nurse, who without a word to me, entered the room and started a tortuous technique called bimanual compression.  I’ll spare you the details, but you can look it up if you are really curious.

My sister told me that my job was to think about my surviving son, and remember to breathe.  Oh yeah, breathe, I thought, and inhaled. 

The bimanual compression was performed at least four times, and while it was happening I was only aware of the pain and the noises I made in response to the pain.  My sister had to leave the room to rally herself, but for the most part she stayed by my side.  I was only out of my body for a matter of seconds in Earth time, but in that time it seemed my body forgot how to breathe automatically.  I had to think, breathe, in order to inhale for a while afterward.

But it was all good.  It was worth the suffering to be here with my loved ones longer, to have the opportunity to finish what I came here to do, to help the people I came here to help, to raise the child I came here to raise, to learn what I need to learn and teach all that I can teach.

***

A belief that gives me peace is that, in that nebulous realm of light that connects the world we experience in life with the oneness of Creator, while we are one with our higher selves and the Divine, we choose our parents and the lessons we intend to learn in each lifetime, and we choose our moment of birth and of death before we enter our bodies.  This belief developed over nearly two decades of spiritual and metaphysical study, but especially from the experiences I have had doing readings in which I ended up connecting strangers with loved ones on the other side.

This belief helped me reach the acceptance level of grief over my stillborn son in just a few weeks.  I don’t feel a huge empty hole in my heart, because I feel my love for him and his love for me.  I keep his ashes and the hat he wore the only time I ever held him in my arms on my altar along with a large black and white image of him that was first displayed at his funeral, all this in my living room, right next to my writing station. Every time I notice the picture I pause a moment to send and receive that love.

 

I share this story with you in hopes it can bring you comfort, hopefully even reduce your fear of death.  There are many other stories about experiences like mine, that may also bring you a measure of peace.  Next week, I will post about the intensive healing work that followed this experience, and some of the key lessons I learned from it.  Blessed be.