As the surgeon and the nurses worked to re-start my heart, I floated above the operating table and found myself looking down on the entire scene. I noticed then that the surgeon, with whom I had been flirting during our pre-op consultations, had a pronounced bald spot. After my recovery, things just weren’t the same between us.
•
I was passing through a long tunnel of light. At the end of it, I saw all my deceased relatives dressed in white, waiting for me and beckoning lovingly—with the exception of Aunt Sonia, who said, “Whoa, someone’s put on a few pounds.” I said, “Excuse me?” And she said, “I’ll try, but I’m surprised you could make it through the light tunnel with those hips.” When the lifeguard resuscitated me, I just felt annoyed.
•
After the hunting accident, I drifted skyward, toward a magnificent being made of light, and although it didn’t speak in a conventional way, and, as far as I could tell, didn’t have a mouth, I could understand everything it said. “Come to me,” the being seemed to intone. “Come to me.” But then, when I got close, the being acted surprised. “Whew! Don’t sneak up on me like that,” it told me with its thoughts. “You know, your face is really messed up. You scared the hell out of me.” I beamed back, with my thoughts, “I thought you called me over.” Then came the reply: “No. I was beckoning to the woman behind you.” I turned and saw a beautiful woman, dressed in white. “Now beat it,” the being of light said. “And, for fuck’s sake, do something about that face. Damn.”
•
As I lay on the putting green, receiving CPR from the E.M.T.s, my life began flashing before my eyes: a baby in a massive crib, a toddler pulling a wagon, a five-year-old getting a new puppy for his birthday. It was going along like that—flash, flash, flash—until my life, which still had sixty years to go, got stuck at my second-grade Christmas pageant, when I had an accident in front of the entire school. I had to relive that awful scene: the embarrassed response of the audience, the hurried mopping up by the angry janitor, the mockery from the stable animals, the damp chill in my Joseph bathrobe. I thought it would never end. Thank God they were able to bring me back to life!
•
There was a lot of light, yes, and feelings of joy and release from this mortal coil, but then there were the relatives, all of them, every last dead one of them, smiling and happy to see me, which I can tell you never happened during my life and, to be honest, just shocked the hell out of me. I think it might have saved my life.
•
In the ambulance, my heart stopped beating for three minutes, and during that time I found myself walking through a beautiful garden with a sparkling brook running through it. On the other side of a bridge stood Jesus and all His apostles, smiling beatifically. Jesus said something to me, which I assumed was an invitation to cross the bridge, but when I set foot on it He said, “No! Can’t you read?” It was then that I looked down and saw a sign on the bridge that read “APOSTLES ONLY.” Jesus pointed downstream, where a log lay across the brook. I nodded, walked to the log, and tried to cross. But the log was deceptively slippery. Each time I got about halfway across, I fell into the brook, and each time Jesus and the apostles laughed. It wasn’t malicious laughter, really, just an expression of delight. But, still, I couldn’t help taking it personally. When I came back to life in the E.R., I felt hurt and confused.
•
As I floated up over the hospital roof, I was overwhelmed by a sense of lightness and peace. I looked down on the goings on of this world, all the struggle and mayhem, and I no longer felt like I was a part of it. Intense surges of unconditional love and acceptance coursed through my body, as if I were being bathed in a warm, healing light. For the first time, I loved myself and all living beings. And then, suddenly, I was back in that grubby little E.R. cubicle, feeling like shit.
A malpractice suit is pending.