For some reason I’ve run across quite a few articles lately on the Near-Death Experience (NDE). That’s when someone close to death perceives events that seem impossible or supernatural right before they are revived.
For example, many report leaving their body and walking down a tunnel toward an intense, bright light. They are greeted by a deceased friend or relative who guides them along. Some people claim this is proof of an afterlife, a heaven. I’m not sure, but to play it safe I decided to try and be a better person here on earth.
Just yesterday I smiled at a stranger on the elevator and although she clutched her purse tightly and moved a few steps away from me, I think I made her day a little better.
Mostly I’ve been wondering who of my deceased friends, loved ones, and relatives would greet me in that tunnel. Maybe it would be Wayne Simon. We were best friends in high school—two goofy, nerdy kids. We would privately make fun of the cooler kids while futilely hoping they’d let us join their clique. Wayne’s claim to fame was that he could eat a Burger King Whopper in one bite—I know, pretty astounding.
Wayne died his senior year. He was rushing to biology class, tripped on the stairs and broke his neck. Life can be that fragile and that screwed up. Anyway, Wayne would be waiting for me in the tunnel and hug me with one arm while in his other hand would be a Whopper.
When we got to our destination, Wayne would introduce me to all these great nerdy, dorky kids who were now his friends and would become my friends, too. Wayne would, of course, still be seventeen but that doesn’t matter because I’m pretty sure that’s my emotional age.
Or maybe it will be Manny Silvers waiting there to guide me. Manny worked as my assistant on a TV show years ago. He was openly, wittily, joyously gay, and was the first person I knew who died of AIDS. I imagine he would happily and knowingly tell me that God lets everybody in. We’d walk together toward the light while I silently hoped that “everybody” didn’t include a few television execs that I had known.
I guess the person I most want to be there would be my dad. He was very sick and in the hospital for months. My dad didn’t trust his primary doctor and wanted me to keep bringing in specialists that could somehow cure the cancer that was eating him up. I did, but nothing good was happening. One day his main doctor told me I should stop bringing in specialists to poke and prod my father—there was nothing more we could do. Exhausted, I reluctantly agreed.
My dad passed away soon after that. I still dream that I had gone to the hospital in the middle of the night when my father was still alive, wrapped him in a blanket, snuck him by the check-out nurse and took him to Mexico or the Philippines or any place where there might be a little-known, still to be tested, non-FDA approved, miracle cure for cancer. I have been feeling very guilty that I gave up when my father needed me most.
Anyway, I can imagine my dad, wearing his hound’s tooth jacket that he loved so much, waiting in the tunnel to greet me. In my best dreams he’d thank me for being a good son and tell me I did everything I could.
He would then say, “My doctor was a jerk, though” as we walked together toward the light.
