I’ve been thinking about death a lot lately.
The reasons are varied and scattered. Part of it is how much death there is around me. Well, maybe not around me personally. But more than 1,000,000 Americans have died from Covid, and that’s a gross understatement because the true toll won’t be known for years, once the consequences of delayed preventative screenings and various other things play out.
Part of it is because my own health seems so shaky. Longhaul Covid damn near killed me last year, and though I have recovered to a great extent, I’m not what I was. I mean, it has been nearly a year and a half since every waking moment I have comes with this horrible taste in my mouth and this goopy feeling that isn’t there, thanks to whatever the hell Covid did to either the nerves in my tongue/mouth or to the part of my brain that receive signals from the mouth. I wake up at least once a night with my hands so damn stiff from whatever Covid did to my joints that I can’t even make a fist. I still have random bouts of tiredness and brain fog. And I just … deal with it. Because that’s the way things are now.
I also realize that I’m 47 years old and that, if you add up all the things I’ve had that lead to shorter lifespans, I could go at any time. Lyme, thalassemia, depression, severe insomnia, sleep apnea… If it can shorten a life, I’ve had it.
However close I am to death, I at least know I’m somewhere along the back nine, and that is just stunning to me. Where did the hot-shit young newspaper guy go who had everything in front of him?
The thing is, I know what comes next.
I know saying that makes me sound nuts, and I know telling this story puts me firmly in the realm of those who walk around the fringe. But I also know this happened and that it wasn’t “just a dream.”
Was it a near-death experience? Dunno. Was I actually dead? Dunno. I know that, at the time this happened, I was having about 30 times the acceptable level if “episodes” each night in which I would stop breathing for more than 10 seconds, so it’s not hard for me to fathom that all of this could have happened when that clock ticked well past 10 seconds. But the truth is, I have no clue what “it” actually was. I just know that it wasn’t a dream.
It was June 23, 2020. The “it” started with me realizing I was struggling to breathe. I was in bed, and I felt like I was suffocating. I called for my wife, gasping that I needed help. I’m struggling so hard, I break off a piece of our headboard trying to get her attention. There’s a time then when I’m actually watching myself in bed struggling to breathe, from up above on the ceiling.
Then, suddenly, I’m floating. I’m outside this big, huge factory. I don’t recognize it. It’s light blue and unfamiliar. There is a tower with a ladder up the side. And it sits kind of on a bluff. I float over to the edge and see this river far, far below, moving very fast. And I feel as if I’m being pushed from behind, and there’s something inside me that knows if I fall in, I’m going to drown.
The “scenes” keep cutting back and forth — struggling while in bed, looking up at the factory, looking down at the river. Then, without any desire to do so, I float in through a door in the factory, and I’m in this long hallway. I recognize that I’m in a hospital. I’m all of a sudden on a stretcher in the hallway. A woman is next to me, but I don’t see her. I just hear her, and she says she’s going to take care of me and that it’s OK. In the background, I hear this steady “beep … beep … beep.” but I don’t recognize what it is coming from.
Then, once again, I’m outside, but it’s dark out, and the factory’s tower is lit up somehow. I look up and see BILLIONS of stars. And suddenly I have this realization: Oh my God. I’m dead. The suffocating, the hospital, the woman beside me … something happened in my sleep and my wife took me to the hospital and now I’m dead.
Without intention, I realize that it’s time to go. There are stars in the sky and there’s something there for me so I look up and then … I just sort of … go.
I zoom up so fast and the world just recedes behind me and I realize I’m in what I consider to be outer space but I’m not scared. I’m searching for something, searching for this light. But there’s nothing like I expect, no huge singular bright light. What I see, instead, are several rectangles in space that are lighter than the areas around it, like there’s a light source coming from inside the rectangles. I turn over and there’s one to my lower left. I look around and see these other boxes of light and realize they are not for me. So I just go to the one that’s for me. I don’t propel myself. I actually don’t even see my physical body anymore. I don’t decide to go. I just go and fall into this light spot.
Once I’m “in” there, I don’t really see anything. Not that I remember, anyway. I don’t see any people or any anything. All that’s there is what I feel. I’m not feeling any sort of sadness. I don’t even have any thought that I have any reason to be sad. It’s hard to explain, but there’s no concept of sadness or longing or missing the people back there. What I feel is calm and comfort and contentment that whatever I was doing I am no longer doing, that if I was alive I am no longer alive. The biggest thing I feel is relief, that I don’t have to fight anymore, I don’t have to worry about all the things that were troubling me. I don’t have to deal with any of it anymore. That’s done. I did it. I can just rest and I am finally free.
But this doesn’t last long. I don’t hear anything or see anything. I just know that I have to go back. I remember feeling something kind of like disappointment, but, looking back, even that was very muted. It was like the existence of anything bad there is drowned out. Then I’m zooming back, out of that rectangle. I see the earth below, and I am falling like a skydiver without a parachute but I don’t feel the speed and I am not scared. I see the factory below and I know that’s where I’m going.
I start to hear beeping again. Beep… beep… beep… and I just know I am going to wake up in the hospital. I’m 100% certain of it. I realize that everything I’ve felt before going there was the process of dying — suffocating and the woman next to me and the beeping… that beeping was someone’s heart monitor, I realize. I zoom through the door of the factory and, again, it’s a hospital. I travel down a hallway and into this small room where I see me, or, well, my body, and I enter it through my head until I am fully back in it.
I try to speak, but my voice comes out really weak. I don’t see anyone, but I feel that my wife is there, that she’s behind me to my right. I say “Get a pen and something to write on” because I want to tell her everything that just happened. I say weakly, like someone coming-to after surgery, “It’s true. It’s all true,” and what I mean is that there really is a “heaven,” someplace we go after we die. I’m so sure that when I open my eyes I’m going to know exactly where I am — in that hospital room – that I am shocked when I open my eyes and I’m in my bed at home. My wife is next to me, sleeping soundly. And I am thoroughly confused.
Fast-forward to today. I’ve told a few people about this experience. Some try to tell me it was a dream. Others see it as a true “near-death experience” or an “out-of-body experience.” What do I think it was?
Man, I get it. I get how if I say, “Um, yeah, I was dead and I saw what comes next” that I sound like a lunatic. I know how I thought of other people who would talk about stuff like this.
I also know how it felt to be there. I have never felt such an all-encompassing peace and calm. There was nothing bad. Nothing worrisome. It was all 100% peace and calm and contentment — beyond comprehension. So was that “heaven?” I don’t know. If it is, it isn’t what everyone talks about heaven being like. There are no clouds and pearly gates and streets paved with gold. There were no relatives there to greet me, no robed figures, no … no … no religion. It was just calm and contentment and peace.
What does that mean? Heck if I know. I’m just telling you what I experienced. And it’s something that now, more than a year-and-a-half later, I still think about, still remember so clearly and vividly it’s like I can touch it.
But I can’t. Not quite. Not now.
Someday?
More From ‘Wrestling With Myself’
Disconnecting
I think I’m in the process of disconnecting. Earlier this week, I logged out of Facebook and Instagram. I deleted all social apps from my phone. I’m not sure, but I don’t think I’ll ever be going back. I’m just kinda done. There was a time social media helped connect me to a past I…
Wearing It
I was introduced to the concept of Wearing It through my now 14-year-old son and his Little League mates. When a batter is at the plate and he dives out of the way of a pitch that otherwise would have hit him, his teammates in the dugout would scream, “Oh, come on! Wear it!” The…
Eternal Sunshine, 20 Years Later
I have been told that I tend to romanticize romance and, thus, have an unrealistic view on how romance actually works. And to be fair, if this is true, I come by it honestly. I grew up in the era of rom-coms in which heart-sick lovers won the girl back through grand acts that involved…
Struggling With the Default State
The human brain is fascinating in its complexity and should serve as an instrument through which we are humbled, considering how little we understand about it. Let me explain this by talking about a worm. Caenorhabditis elegans is this disgusting little roundworm that happens to have the distinction of being the first multicellular animal whose…
The Irony of My New Employer
“Isn’t it ironic? Don’t ya’ think?’ Alanis Morisette Forget for a second the fact that Alanis had a rather loose hold on the definition of the word “Irony” when she penned the lyrics to her 1996 song “Ironic,” because life is, indeed, ironic. For the regular readers of my site (Hello, you three), I have…
When Can I Be Done?
I ask a lot of questions. I’ve always asked a lot of question. If there was a prototypical annoying 3-year-old who wanted to know the “Why?” of everything, just look at a picture of 3-year-old me and that’s the kid. It never stopped. I still ask myself a lot of questions, but the one I…
The Lonely Have The Answer
Evolutionarily speaking, the feelings we hate the most are good for us. Take fear. Fear sucks, right? But fear also biochemically gets your body ready to fight or flee, and from a survival standpoint, that’s a good thing. Then there is loneliness. I’ve been lonely a lot lately. I mean, an awful lot. This isn’t…
Grief, Twenty-Three Years Later …
As a society, we don’t like messy grief. We make movies and write books about people whose grief is nice and neat and tidy and, most of all, purposeful. Dignified. Proper. But messy grief — or, as I like to call it, real grief … no one makes a movie or writes a book or…
Toxic Sacrifice
It makes sense that, traditionally speaking, men raised in the United States build their life around sacrifice. It’s a deeply embedded part of our culture. As a historically Christian-dominant nation, we are raised with a male-identified God who came to Earth in the form of a man who literally laid down his life not just…
When Old Things Don’t Fit
Most of us are familiar with how it feels when we find an old article of clothing in the back of our closet and make the mistake of trying it on. Bodies change. Styles change. Tastes change. In most instances, closet finds and best left unfound. I think it’s something of a truism in life…
The Significant Things
Oh, to know The Significant Things as they happen That the casual “hello” is the first word you are speaking to your forever love. The handshake is an introduction to the person who will most deeply touch your soul The trip, taken, is the one that starts the path to your destiny. To know The…
Hard
So much of this world is hard. By that, I don’t mean “difficult,” though yes, it is that, too. What I mean by “hard” is the opposite of “soft.” I’m talking about the kind of thing that, when you bump your shin or — God forbid — your pinkie toe against it, it fucking hurts.…
Sixteen Notebooks
It was the afternoon of Sept. 26, 2015, and I’d just returned home from a short stay in a psychiatric hospital. The pace of life in a psychiatric hospital is glacial. Days stretch on endlessly, nights pass in medicated dreamlessness, and the cycle repeats again. There’s horrible food, group sessions, recreation time outside when it’s…
Thirty Years in Hell: My Mental Health Story
This is a story I share with great hesitancy. I have felt the bitter sting of discrimination for having a brain illness, discrimination no one experiences when they have a problem with a different, better understood organ — the heart, the lungs, the kidneys. I know what it’s like to have work colleagues ignore you…
Scars
I’ve long held a fascination with scars — both my own and other people’s. Scars hold stories. Not many people get a scar from something they don’t remember. I remember being fascinated in middle school by this really cute girl I wanted to talk to. She had a tiny scar over her top lip. I…
What Healing Looks Like
Healing isn’t for the faint of heart. Not if it’s genuine. Not if you delve deep into the core where all that is ugly and wicked and broken has had time to take root and fester. Real healing is not all about finding sunny days and happy times. Maybe those are on the other side…
Since Then
Since Then … Every morning holds that moment Every mile, a reminder Every night sighs a silent prayer Since Then … The music tends to a hurting heart Harmonizing with the memories of what was Before ripping the wounds open once again Since Then … A million words haven’t fixed what I didn’t know was…
I’m Doing Alright, But …
The drive home last night was a bit rough, which wasn’t entirely surprising. I’ve been around a lot of people the past few days, hadn’t slept past 4:30 a.m. for four or five days, and, in general, this has been one of those “Big Feels” times that seem to happen to me. There are these…
The Inside Story of Johnny Boy Marketing
Big things happen in odd places and at the strangest times. I met my future wife in the basement of a dingy college residence hall. The biggest boost to my career came when I had to cancel an interview with someone who could have been President of the United States. And I realized I could…
A Human Paradox
One of the great paradoxes COVID revealed in the human animal is how much we need each other while we simultaneously can’t stand to be around each other for long periods of time. Stay-at-home orders booted us from our familiar social circles and, in many cases, put is in direct contact with those we love…
Soul Comforts
Soul Comforts A just-because gift An accidental nap Shared fries A hidden note, found A joined passion A soft hand Communicated desires A hug, freely given A safe landing place A secluded table Memory-filled songs Appreciation, openly stated Take me away from here Take me away Take me Take A common blanket A slow dance…
Searching For The Sweet Spot
I believe there’s a sweet spot in life. It’s that space in which everything just feels balanced. There’s not too much work or too little play, the calendar is just full enough, your friends and family are who you need them to be and you are who they need you to be. Your job is…
Anybody Out There?
My wife and son are going out of town for the week starting tomorrow afternoon, and I have absolutely no one I can call to do anything with. No one. Nobody. If I put in pin in my house on a map (remember those?) and drew a circle with a 50 mile radius, there isn’t…
The Danger of Self-Censorship
There’s been a lot of talk in my area lately about banning books. I love this. Oh, it’s not because I think that banning books is such a good idea. It’s not. Nor is blindly insisting that every book needs to be in a school library to have significance. They don’t. What I’m happy to…
Welcome Back, Swagger
There was a time in my life when I had swagger. I was never the most popular or athletic kid in school, but for a while there, I was a really good baseball player. I could hit. I could field. And, boy, could I pitch. Some of the most “over” kids in high school would…
Dear World, Seriously … WTF?
Dear World, Hey there. It’s me. John. John who? Yeah, I thought you might say that. It has been a day. It has been a week. Hell, world … it has been a life. Oh. Wait. You need to grab my file? Go ahead. I’ll wait. Give it a good read. Yeah, don’t skip over…
A Life Devoid of Friends
I remember well the late night and early morning hours following my senior prom. I was with my classmates on a yacht/ferry/boat slowly circling New York City. I and my girlfriend of roughly a year had stepped out of the madness inside for some fresh air and quiet. Even then, I could only do “loud”…
Livin’ The Empath Life
I was in my 40s by the time I realized the average person doesn’t feel things like I do — not even close. Up until then, I always just assumed that when people were around someone who was feeling some sad or angry or even extremely happy, they felt that shit too. I’m not talking…
Dreams
Insomnia sucks. Period. Full Stop. But… The benefit of sleeping extremely poorly for about four months after Longhaul Covid turned my already bad sleep situation into one that was slowly killing me was that I didn’t dream. I never slept deeply enough or long enough for dreams to happen. And in many ways, that was…
James Might Have Killed His Dad
James was one of the first people I met when we moved from the frozen tundra of south-central Minnesota to the ruralist of rural Missouri in 2009. We signed up my older son, Joey, for Little League right away in an effort to spur the formation of friendships and to scratch his itch for the…
So Many Damn Feelings — Oct. 22, 2021
👇 What’s Below 👇On Men and Crying 😭 Why I write ✍🏻Back Crackin’ 👨⚕️ So here’s a thing I sometimes hate about myself: I cry. Like, easily. And often. Or at least it’s “often” in comparison to how often men normally cry. At least, I think it’s often in comparison to the frequency men normally cry. I…
Infant Loss Awareness — Oct. 15, 2021
Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, and even almost 21 years later, I’m not sure how I feel about it. So much of time is arbitrary. We screw it up so badly that we have to add a whole day every four years. So for me, today is just like any other day…
Fourth State of Being — Oct. 14, 2021
There’s this state of being that’s not quite asleep, not quite dreaming but definitely not awake. That’s where I found myself Thursday evening at Livin’ Sublime Wellness, my little yoga studio in Wentzville. Restorative yoga is a lifesaver for me. If you haven’t tried it, you should. Not to sound all Hippie-Dippy or anything, but…
Rocks > People? — Sept. 16, 2021
In high school, I was friends with a girl named Denise. She and I were both free-spirited creative types who liked to write. For a time, we served as co-presidents of the formed-by-us creative writing club, and we even went on a date (that didn’t work out too well). Denise was and is a no-bullshit…
Why Exactly Am I Here? — Sept. 4, 2021
Sometimes Things Be That Way There are some days that, when night falls and you take stock of all that happened, you just say — or at least think — “Well good goddamn. What the fuck was that all about?” Today has been such a day. I look back at the waking hours and realize…
An Emotional Day – Aug. 29, 2021
Believing in Myself So here’s the thing: I have amazing intuition. Believe what you want about humans having only five senses. We don’t. We have more. And for me, one of my strongest senses is my gut feelings about what to do and not to do. I’ve had this ability since I was a small…