Being dead in a dying world

Warren Zevon, Nietzsche and Code Blue

The object of a New Year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul … Unless a man starts afresh about things, he will certainly do nothing effective.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Being dead was the easy part. No one ever tells you that. From the second the doctor put down the electric paddles and told the nurse in the crowded emergency room that he was going to declare the time of death, the patient felt completely at peace. The intense chest pain that rocked his entire chest was gone. The fear and panic he felt when he collapsed on the coffee shop floor was gone. The confusion of the chaotic ambulance ride was gone. Now, he felt a soothing warmth and saw a glowing soft light surround him that felt safe and inviting. As my friend took a sip of coffee, he quietly almost whispered the words again. “I just felt such a peace.”

Now dying was another story. The pain was intense — breathtakingly intense. His brain struggled to make sense of what was happening. On one level, he remembered his doctor had told him his heart was not good; it would require surgery, but that decision was put off. For some of us, denial is a defense against the inevitability of dying. As we grow up, we slowly begin growing down. We paint symbolic blood over our doors every night, praying death will pass us by.

My friend picked his story back up. “I went code blue in the emergency room. I could tell they were working on me, I could feel the pain. Suddenly, I was no longer in the room. I was in a different place. There was soft warm light as I slowly traversed the place. People were with me. I did not know them, but I was with friends. The pain was replaced by a warm feeling of peace. Then I heard my name being called repeatedly. I started going backwards, away from the glow of light. As I went backwards, my chest again started filling with pain. I awoke on the table looking straight into my doctor’s eyes.”

What my friend discovered later was that two doctors were working on him when his heart stopped. After six minutes, the one doctor said he was gone and called his time of death. The second doctor refused to stop and kept working on him. After nine minutes, my friend awoke. Having stepped into one world, he returned to where he started. But not as the same man, inside something had indeed changed. It would take my friend two years to come to grips with his experience — being dead can do that to a man.

What to make of his experience? “No one can build you the bridge on which you — and only you — must cross the river of life,” wrote the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. For my friend, he found mindfulness in the present. The past was gone, and the future no longer held any power over him.

As we start the new year of 2018, for some it will be met with worry, for some hope and for others a continuation of whatever was going on in their lives in 2017. But it can be a time to start afresh. Let go of what was painful in the past, resolve to change your focus for the present and the beauty and love it can contain. “Enjoy every sandwich,” proffered the singer Warren Zevon after finding out he had terminal cancer. We don’t need to die to start recognizing what is happening around us and make changes to be present in it. Be yourself, not your problems.

My friend put down his cup and said, “I enjoy my life, my friends, my family. I want to live, but I tell you quite honestly, I have no fear of dying now.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a worn folded piece of paper. It was a notarized statement which stated in large letters “Do not resuscitate.” Smiling serenely, he said, “For whatever time I have left, I’m going to feel and work and fight, but when it’s my time, there will be no fear.”

Then with a chuckle, he added “After all, I’ve already died once.”