Excerpt
Chapter 12

"That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible universe, forms my idea of God." –Albert Einstein

I looked up at the ceiling, feeling strangely peaceful and calm about everything. In the past few hours since the lumbar puncture I was left with the feeling that my life had been completely reviewed, and that many issues had been resolved or understood. I heard quiet voices and saw my husband, Sven talking to the neurologists. They were explaining the importance of getting my inter-cranial pressure down and telling him about a new diuretic medication that was successful in treating Glaucoma patients by reducing cerebral-spinal fluid levels. They suggested that a high dose of this drug may help to decrease mine.

We agreed to the suggested treatment but what no-one knew at the time was that my immune system was so deficient, the hole from the lumbar puncture had not healed, and as a result my cerebral-spinal fluid had been slowly leaking away; instead of being high it had now become dangerously low. The suggested medication took a bad situation and made it considerably worse.

Within a short time I felt spacey and had vision difficulties, I was seeing - not double but four of everything, even if I covered one eye! I slowly reached to feel for the buzzer to ring for help. As I pressed it, I was overcome with an absolute certainty that I was going to die. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew I was dying.

I didn't feel panic, it was more like a calm knowledge; I was dying and I knew that there was absolutely nothing I could do to stop it. When the nurse-physician came into the room I told her that I was seeing four of everything. She looked very worried and as she turned to quickly leave the room she said, ‘That is the reverse of what's supposed to be happening!’

I closed my eyes against the overwhelming weakness as I realised I was upset – no, I was pissed off! I thought, ‘Bloody Hell! I’m here dying alone, half a world away from my family, and there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop it! I don’t want to die, I’ll be so pissed off if I die because I haven’t done everything I’m supposed to do yet!’

As I lay there knowing that God wasn’t going to show me any more mercy now than he’d shown me previously in my life, a voice suddenly spoke – but it wasn’t really a voice as in a person’s voice, it was more like the entire force around me spoke, and it said, ‘And what is it that you are supposed to do?’'

My immediate thought was ‘I don’t know – I just know I haven’t done it yet!’ but there was no response – just silence, and I thought ‘OMG! That was the wrong answer! But I’m still dying, and even though I know I can’t do anything about it, I don’t want to die!’

Though I knew what I was going through was completely beyond my control, I also knew that I was in the wrong frame of mind to die, and thought ‘I know I can’t go to God, or wherever you go when you die, with an attitude, so I’d better do something! And quick!’ So I did the only thing I could think of, and what everybody does in a moment of total desperation, I prayed to a God that I wasn’t sure existed.

‘Please God, I don’t want to die but I know it’s not up to me so I pass the decision to you – if I’m meant to die then I accept your decision,’ and with that I let go in my mind, and just as I’d expected, everything went black.

The blackness had me confused momentarily and I felt like I was five years old again shut in the store room at the convalescent home with all the Christmas decorations. Would the door be reefed open at any moment by nurse belly-hole who would then grab me by the hair and drag me out? Remembering what I did back then to conquer the fear, I thought, 'Santa wouldn’t hurt me, Santa wouldn’t hurt me', then the confusion immediately subsided and was replaced with a tremendous calmness.

Suddenly, the ‘me’ within my chest area popped out as my mind could only sit back and watch. It was as though in deciding to let go, my mind had given up any rights it had to control anything, especially in this new reality, and the part of me in my chest took over.

As the blackness cleared I saw that I was still in the hospital room but all the excruciating discomfort and pain had blissfully and completely gone, as had the quadruple-vision. In fact, I could see so clearly it was more real than if I’d looked through my own eyes - which was when I realised I wasn’t looking through my own eyes at all – I wasn’t even in my body!

I was floating above and to the right of my body, which I could clearly see below me, and the eyes of that body were definitely closed. I knew then that the body I was looking at was an empty shell. As I hovered there, looking down at myself, three medical staff burst into the room and I could see that each one of them was surrounded by a pillar of light – like a large cigar standing on its end but much taller than they were, which made them actually look like eight-foot beings.

Within the pillar of light that surrounded them, I also noticed that each one had a tiny but intensely brilliant, bright white light floating next to them at about head height. This tiny light was so brilliant, like the spark of light you see when the sun hits a diamond, an intense flash of light but frozen in time, suspended and very bright-beyond-white. I also instinctively knew that each tiny light belonged uniquely to each of them, and my immediate thought was, ‘Wow, they each have a Tinkerbelle fairy with them!’ I also knew those tiny lights would burn my eyes out if I was to look at them through physical human eyes.

As I continued to watch, it was as though I was observing the scene from one side of a massive, triple-glazed plate glass window, and that my physical body and the medical staff were on the other side. It didn’t seem as though I was occupying the same dimension as them but I could see what they were doing from where I was, as though my dimension could see through to theirs. I knew that they couldn’t see or hear me. I also knew it would be futile to try to get their attention even if I had a body with arms I could use to bang on the ‘glass’ or a voice I could use to shout with. It wouldn’t have mattered - I just knew that they couldn’t see or hear me.

But I felt fantastic! I was free of my physical body and so light! A bit like when I was a child, though this was different from flying around the schoolyard or the out of body experience I’d had after I’d lost my daughter. This felt so much lighter and everything that was physical was slowly leaving me bit by bit. First my conscious mind had gone quiet, and was in a sort of stunned observation mode; my physical body was still on the bed below me, and one-by-one all the physical things left me and ceased to matter.

I seemed to get lighter and move further away from my body. It was as though I was going through a number of filters. Pain had already left me, and fear had also left me and as everything seemed to be happening so quickly now, I didn’t have time to be afraid anyway. My anger at dying left me, and seemingly in parallel but impossibly all at once, emotions came and went until there was absolutely nothing left. Nothing but a pure, utter, total, and complete peace - and thought the word does not do it justice at all, a love so overwhelming I knew that my physical body would dissolve from the power of it.

It was as though I was being held in the most overwhelmingly beautiful and loving arms, and I basked in the complete beauty of it. Then I realised that 'me' was here, the 'me' I knew myself as in my physical body. I also knew that this was home; this was where I had come from, and also that I had been here many, many times before.

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