This post has a theme song:(Click on "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" under the Audio Clips Section on the homepage footer)
People have asked me about my death. I usually skip over it to avoid being caught up in the physical drama because there was so much more going on than that!
Especially since my experience goes so far beyond the “hovering above my body” or “seeing a relative that has passed on.” There was so much more going on than what the monitors said and the importance is in all of us having an opportunity to be liberated from a fear of death and all of the amazing information therein, not really in the bruises I sustained in being revived.
And yet, in leaving the beginning out, maybe the miracle (doctors word, not mine) that I am even here is being left out?
I was given a methamphetamine at a party at the university that I attended. I was lying in my bed and had an awareness that I was fading away. I was taken to the hospital off campus where my roommate who had followed the ambulance was screaming at me to keep my eyes open. I did until I just couldn’t anymore. I died at around four am. I was air lifted to a hospital better equipped to “save my life.”
I had a heart attack and several small strokes. My brain was swelling. I was not breathing on my own. My family was told to make arrangements for my funeral. If I were to survive they didn’t think I would be cognizant or possibly walk.
I woke up and they asked me who people were. My first thought was “how rude of them to have me do all the introductions when my throat hurts so badly from the respirator.”
It didn’t occur to me that they thought I wouldn’t know who anyone was.
Afterwards I went back to the original hospital to get my records. A nurse that I didn’t recognize ushered me into the ICU to show the other nurses. One of them started crying and said “when we put you on the helicopter I didn’t think you would live through the ride.”
It is a phenomenon to have not been here and to be here now.
I am constantly amazed.
Before I felt as though my life was something I was doing because…I was here. Now I feel like it’s something I’m very consciously doing because there was a time out in the time line of my life. A time when I wasn’t doing it. Wasn’t breathing on my own, not here, but kept alive. A place to come back to. Or an opportunity to not return. Of course it’s the same options as anyone, it’s just in this specific way. And I’m a little bit in awe that I’m even here. Truly. I am constantly surprised that I am even here. I look at myself and I look at you, I look around me, and I think “ok, let’s go”!!!!
I so deeply remember what it was like to not be here. To stand next to someone that can’t see me. To try to move or touch an object and be unable to do so.
So now, when I pick something up in my hands, I feel it. I’m amazed that I am doing so. When someone sees me, just in their using their basic ocular function, I smile inwardly. Certainly they are not doing anything extraordinary, but extraordinary is exactly what it is to me.
It is such a thrill to be here.
It’s really really hard to care about anything other than how happy I am to exist. I try very hard to be serious, or to distract myself with something pertinent to everyday life. But how happy I am to hug those I couldn’t reach when dead, how happy I am that they can see me, how happy I am to just be here always wins out!
Next up…..what happened while I was gone…….
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7 comments:
October 9th, 2007 at 12:22 am
It’s almost a shame that as a society, many people have to have a severe physical trauma to appreciate the intricate complexity and sheer beauty of being alive. To interrupt the pattern, they do it through contrast.
To me that’s like a sledge hammer vs a butterfly. And I suppose some people do need a sledge hammer approach to get a different picture. Other people use drugs, rituals, ceremonies, hypnosis, religion, art or some other means to get that appreciation. Some people never do appreciate the difference in perspective. They don’t even believe in God. Or whatever you call her. Skeptical of anything unproven by man scientifically makes them too nauseous to even consider. Too funny. And to me ultimately very scared, because they can only believe in what they can measure and have no faith in what they can’t.
To me whatever makes us tick or the grass grow or the divine interplay of life, is hard to overlook. And to realize there is clearly a bigger picture going on, that I doubt any of us even begin to comprehend in this lifetime.
The fact that we can all breathe and not have to think about it, or that our heart beats with no conscious thought for it or that the trillions of cells in our body work in an amazing symphony conducted mostly outside our conscious awareness is simply mind boggling.
At any one point in time there are an estimated 200,000,000 bits of information passing between our left and right hemispheres. And we are aware of only a slight fraction of that consciously.
All I can say is ‘Thank God’ we don’t have to think to breathe. Some people do, however. And I believe that that’s feedback from the mechanism that ’something’ needs to be paid attention to. But that’s another story.
Anyway, I think Wordsworth once said “That our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting”. I wish I could express it as eloquently…but I think he’s right. And if we’re lucky or just need an occasional sledge hammer dropped on us to appreciate the human experience then maybe, just maybe we can get a glimpse of the eternal beauty within and between each of us.
In the meantime, I still have dishes to do and teeth to brush…
October 9th, 2007 at 9:10 am
i feel this more deeply everytime,and the more of it gets bigger as the thoughts add up, i sob in my place at the power and beauty relative to you cause its personal, and universal, this understanding will surely change the nature of our daily and alter the hows and ways of comings and goings. phenomenon indeed, thank you for all of this, its so much to make real, i love that song and i love you!
October 10th, 2007 at 8:18 am
daisies, orange and yellow petals in a giant field with so much breath of fresh air i’m floating. being awake is exhillirating. that’s all i could think about reading your post this morning, like a sexy mariah carrey video!teeehee
October 10th, 2007 at 5:37 pm
I’m just so tickled! I am going to curl up in an oversized chair, with my legs pulled up and a cup of hot tea in my hands. I will feel the chair holding me and the warmth of the teacup in my hands and listen to your story and hang on every word for it reminds me why I chose to come here, after having so long forgotten.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
Thanks a lot for sharing this, Erin. Ever since i had the pleasure to meet you I sensed you are someone special and when you told me just a little about what happened to you I was even more sure about your specialness (if there’s such a word!).
I am so glad you are alive and I’ll be looking forward to the next part and your book.
By the way, I love the song. What’s the name and who does it?
Til later, fellow GOLDEN BEING!!
October 12th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
See, this is what I’m talking about, I’m so happy to be here to talk with you all!
Robert- that was amazing, astute and poetic. Thank you
T&V-more and more of that! Daily alterations…
Angela- head piece feathers everywhere! Mariah wants one.
Jill-Feel your blisssssss!
Paul-You are so, so, so, so, so, so, great! The song is called
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel
October 17th, 2007 at 7:20 am
The last paragraph in this post I feel was gift wrapped with my name on it! To be in a constant state of happiness to the point where you find you have to ‘distract’ yourself from it to take care of something–now there is where I want to be! Since I opened that gift I am remembering that that IS my natural state! That is how I ‘arrived’ here! There are family stories that attest to that! So now I am, (sing)
Working my way back to me, babe!
With a burning love inside!
So, Erin, this is my thank you letter! What do YOU want for Christmas!
Lots of Love,
Jill
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