Like many people, in spite of how I've tried to live my life in a good way, if I were totally honest with myself....I would have said "I'm afraid to die", "afraid to let go".
However, last month, my husband and I heard a very interesting story when we went to a Syrian Orthodox Church Lenten (vegetarian) dinner. Our table quickly filled up with people (some were strangers as we began, but all were friends by the time we left). A man began talking about his by-pass operation. One of the guests was a professor of African Studies at the local college who came from Capetown, South Africa. She began to discuss her near death experience (she’d had a cerebral hemorrhage that put her in a coma for a month; she is FINE now). I will change her name for the story....although she told her story openly, maybe she didn't want someone to RETELL the story. Her memory of what she saw and felt while she was in that coma brought much peace to us. Most people who've had near death experiences talk of the "white light" or "going through the tunnel towards the white light".....but Melba's experience was distinctly different. Actually, I never found that "white light" on the other side particularly comforting. She appeared to be a woman in her late 50′s - a very beautiful lady...one who would stand out in a crowd because of her beauty, sense of self-assurance and knowledge of life.
Melba told us (we all sat enthralled, listening to her story) that she remembered her time in coma (which had been close to a month). She opened her eyes (imaginarily, within the coma) and was in Capetown again…she knew immediately it was “home” because of the flora (the special types of ferns that grow there, the protea, that grow in few other places on earth), the azure coloured sky and there was her (late) mother calling to her, with great happiness. Her mother was as she looked about 45 years ago. Melba went on to say that her mother had been kind, but also one who pushed Melba to be her best – in fact, she told Melba from a young age that “you’re going to have to work twice as hard as anyone else in this world because you’re a female and because you’re Black”. Melba said she was also the type of mother one could NEVER lie to – her mother would know immediately if anything untrue was told to her.
Melba said that prior to this, she had been afraid of death, but “letting go” was the more pleasant of the two choices….she could hear the birds singing, see the lush, verdant plants waving in Capetown, the AZURE sky and her mother who had her arms open. It would have been a very easy and comforting place for Melba to go, and she WANTED to stay there, but every time she tried to run to her mother (oddly enough that was the only person she saw, no other late relative)…..something kept pulling her back, and that angered her because she wanted to go to this place (and it wasn’t present-day Captetown, but the Capetown of her youth). Finally, she told her mother that she couldn’t stay because there were things she’d been asked to do. Melba said her mother replied “Let me just SEE about that!” and disappeared (to check) for a while. When the mother came back she was crying instead of smiling. “My dear, I’m afraid it is true. You are not to come here at this time”. Melba felt so sad to let go of the beautiful “place” and letting go would have been the EASY choice. Instead, she opened her eyes out of the coma and came back to the living. She said it most certainly took away her fear of death (all of us at the table too began to feel that perhaps death is not a fearful place but a pleasant place). Since that time, I’m no longer afraid to go to the other side.
I am still afraid not to teach Nando all I know before leaving ( he is naive of many things – his purity, innocence and genuine goodness were what attracted me to him to begin with), but since Melba’s description, I believe I will be in Sri Lanka….not the polluted, bustling Sri Lanka of today (where no-one has time to say hello) but the Sri Lanka of my childhood….when it was common to see an elephant cross the road, and the air was clean and pure, canna lilies grew like weeds and in the mountains the air was crisp and cold in the mornings. The nearby waterfalls were clean and one could drink the chilly water. Hopefully, I will also see there my parents and my favourite Aunties and Uncles. Strangely enough, I don’t worry (except to leave her in a financially advantaged position) for our teenage daughter – she is so sharp, focused, self-confident, intelligent, determined and will change the world in every positive sense of the word. But once I teach Nando all he needs to know to cope with the BIG world, I can let go (mind you, I don't want to, but just saying that the FEAR of dying is gone now).
No comments:
Post a Comment