What My Near Death Experience Taught Me About Love

My view from the edge of existence

How’s your spirit, Substackers?

I hope this finds everyone safe and well on a Sunday. People often ask me about my near death experience (NDE)… I arguably had a couple of those, here is a story of the first one:

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The sound of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer filled the room as a baby girl was pulled from my abdomen. My husband, Zach, leaves my side to cut the cord as I lay open on the table. She’s a ferocious blur of pink across the room wailing with the sweetest, brightest baby-cry I’d ever heard. 

While they examine her, my vitals plunge as I begin to bleed out from a mysterious source. I see panic on the faces of my doctors and nurses. 

Zach grabs my hand quickly - I say I love him and they roll me away.

I’m rushed back into emergency surgery, as Zach is left roaming the hospital halls in the dead of the night trying to find both his wife and his new baby.

At some point in the mist between life and death, I found myself sitting on a bench.

I recall having no emotion. Around me I felt the swirl of activity - like what it feels like to close your eyes in an airport. I felt the sensation of people coming and going. But I was sitting, just watching myself on an operating table in the hospital.

I could see myself surrounded by doctors and nurses. They all looked concerned and stressed as they desperately tried to save me.

I felt oddly calm.

I specifically remember thinking so clearly, “I wish I had my phone to text Zach that this will be a while.” 

I wanted him to know I don’t look so good on the table, but I’d be back. I somehow knew it would be a while.

I guess phones aren’t allowed in the liminal space between life and death.

It was like my existence was on pause. My consciousness had tapped out and was watching my body from outside itself. 

Over the course of the next day, all Zach knew was that I’m not waking up from the anesthesia. 

At a certain point in the chaos, I recall being back in my body and stuck in the dark. I could hear my doctors and nurses, but I couldn’t feel or move. I was just aware inside the black. 

I kept trying to wake up, but a wall paralyzed me in the dark. 

But wait, I can move my toes.

“She must be having a seizure!” a man calls out.

An earthquake of frustration and helplessness cuts through the dark. Don’t they all say wiggle your toes if you can hear me? I'm pretty sure wiggling toes is the universal “I’m trapped in my body” signal. Welp, all I can do is wiggle. I don’t have the strength or ability to be more creative. 

I was determined to stay in my body. 

But there was a strange peace in the waiting. I was worried, but I was just floating inside myself. It didn’t feel violent or nightmarish. Waves of acceptance washed over me. 

And thankfully, I do wake - but I am never the same.

Before I left the hospital, I had other NDEs. I felt the family that had passed. I felt a superlunary dialogue. I had the sensations of being tuned into some piece of the universe that was mysterious and unknown.

It’s hard to know if these near death experiences were strange dreams or some psychosis or a glimpse at the celestial - but whatever happened, I returned to life changed and determined to get home to the baby and Zach.

My near death experience gave me the ultimate reminder about life’s priorities. In the liminal space between life and death, my thoughts weren’t about ambition or regrets or what I had or hadn’t done with my life - all my thoughts were about Zach and July and how to get home to our new family. 

Life serves up uncertainty - and the greatest of those uncertainties is what’s on the other side. 

As folks of science will say, there’s a cerebral explanation for NDEs. I think that’s true. But what I think is also true, is that we are capable of tapping into some kind of miraculous connected consciousness. There are patterns in NDEs that we don’t find elsewhere and I can’t tell you how or why. 

I’m an ant who can see a world outside my own that I don’t understand, but know is there.

But I can tell you, whatever waits for us outside our bodies, it’s calm, connected, and full of love. 

In some ways, I feel like those feelings came back with me. I never had a purpose outside my own ambition before and now, I have a deep calling to help others. 

Your peace is part of my peace. 

In my life’s possible pause, my thoughts were always orbiting those I loved. It makes me think about the purpose of love - I write about that a bit in my book. I think essentially love is our engine and connection to one another. It’s the energy that propels us to keep going.

Love is why I lived.

Read More About How It All Began:

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If you’re new here and wondering, “what happened to this lady?” read:

Welcome to my disease. What is atypical Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome (aHUS) or Complement-Mediated Thrombotic Microangiopathy (CM-TMA)?

I started writing this when I was on dialysis. It’s intended to be both memoir and a practical tool to help folks who might be going through something similar or those caregivers and family supporting someone with a challenging diagnosis. NOTE: This is not intended to replace actual medical guidance. Please consult your doctors on your individual challenges and situations. Please talk to your clinicians before adjusting any of your care protocols. Also names have been changed for most of my medical staff.

Thank you to new paid subscriber Olivia D. Your support has been so magical. Honored to know you!

Also thank you to Nicola D. I appreciate you are here. I know you know this journey well! Grateful for your support.

Thank you to CC Couchois, Roy Lenn, and Dr. Richard Burwick for your founding level donation.