What a wonderful lady (and very purple!). I absolutely agree with her. Everything she said.
Maybe all my reasons might not be the same as hers to be unworried about death.
One is to do with my spirituality so I feel very pleased to ensure my contribution to the molecular recycling that allows the earth to function so well. I’m grateful to plants that they’ve transformed chemical so I could digest them.
I believe in a creator though not in the superstitious way some very limited interpretations of the Genesis poem do. I think that as very ancient, maybe early bronze age, creation stories go I think that one is remarkable scientifically coherent. Let's leave it there.
I also believe I’m made in his image in some way, including creativity and care for that nature, I want to do my bit, dead or alive in partnership with nature and him. I feel the same about humans. If they’re also made in God’s image, how you treat the idol shows what you think of the god so I think how we treat people matters too.
I have other reasons why I don’t mind the thought of dying.
One is hard to be honest about. I’m tired. I’ve worked really hard and am sore and a part of me would hate to leave the girls and the world and my friends but I don’t feel my life has been wasted and maybe the rest, peace in death will be a reward. Even a relief. I dread getting more elderly and even more kronky than I am now. I’ve been elderly since I was in my 37.
Another reason I’m not worried about death is that, at least in part, I’ve already done it.
After giving birth to Joanna I had internal bleeding (small tear on the cervix they eventually found in theatre) for 6 ½ plus hours after giving birth to Joanna. Gory details below for if you feel like reading.
Long story short between losing consciousness outside theatre at 7pm ish and coming round in a room sometime after midnight I have a very distinct memory. I was rising up over my body and was aware of the people. I wouldn’t to make false claims, it didn’t last as long as some people’s NDE seem to and wasn’t anything like as detailed. My main feeling was one of absolute peace and confidence and I felt that I could go or stay and my life was completely in God’s hands. It wasn’t a completely unfamiliar feeling in one sense in that I’d changed from being a church goer to something more when I was 17, a decade previously and there was continuity in the sense of being aware of God’s presence. The peace was something else again. Even when I had some PND in the following months at the same time I also had that peace and a sense of wonder at being alive. It took a couple of decades before I lost the ability to be able to tell the difference between what ever had come apart, not sure if the words body and soul are technically accurate, something like that anyway.
Hence the fact of death doesn’t feel scary.
Gory details-
They only found out when I was feeling very poorly and the nurse who’d been fobbing me off for hours finally reported me to sister who came to look at me and palpate my stomach and asked if I’d peed, which I hadn’t. She left Colly to get me onto a bedpan on a chair and I passed a massive clot. I lay down, he ran to the nurses station, a registrar was there, came, took one look at me and said “Get her to theatre, run!”. 2 nurses clicked the brakes off on my bed and we ran.
At that moment Ruth and my in laws had just arrived for visiting. I said I love you to Ruthie as we went by, (who was desperate to see the baby more than me lol)
On the way to theatre I prayed, as one does, and felt convinced as if someone talked to me, that I must remain totally calm.
I was outside theatre for a while. Someone was trying to find new places to get a line in with plasma (next day I counted 21 holes, even in my ankles) until blood arrived from the main building, which was delayed. They took the cuff off my arm when i started to register all zeros. At that point I did feel a little panicky and started to pray out loud. A nurse leaned over and I don’t remember any more.
When I was in recovery, shivvering under a space blanket, shock I suppose, the nurse sitting at the desk was reading the account of what happened in theatre and she expressed surprise, then on us asking she said they'd had to get my heart going several times.
When I was in recovery, shivvering under a space blanket, shock I suppose, the nurse sitting at the desk was reading the account of what happened in theatre and she expressed surprise, then on us asking she said they'd had to get my heart going several times.
An interesting post script happened 6 weeks later. I’d been to the dr for the check up and he’d refused to answer any questions about it even though he’d come to visit me the following day up on the ward. He said just be grateful you’re alive.
I went home and we said to each other, did it really happen? Did we just make it all up? No one would talk about it even amongst friends and I certainly hadn’t said about the NDE. In 1987 these things weren’t yet recognised and I didn’t want to sound weird. I think we actually prayed together about it then the phone rang.
A friend from church and ex colleague from the hospital, I was medical social worker she physio, rang and said she’d just had a most surprising chat with her next door neighbour while they were both getting their washing in. The neighbour was a nurse in Grimsby maternity. She told Pam it was a miracle I was alive. (I later found out through a radio programme that Grimsby mat was successfully prosecuted to do with way over the average percentage of mother deaths) She, no christian beliefs, but decorative cross wearer had leant over me at some point in theatre and this illegally worn cross fell out of her uniform over me and she told Pam she felt God was looking after me and I’d be OK.
Specifically she said there were 3 coincidences without which I wouldn’t be here. Briefly that an extra strict sister was on duty and checked on me in person, a grumpy registrar was on duty and the nurses got theatre ready extra fast for once cos they’re scared of him, and the junior doctor in theatre kept insisting the textbook says you should check the cervix first before doing the hysterectomy, despite the rest of the team wanting to rush ahead he insisted and of course it was the tiny tear on my cervix that was bleeding. She mentioned he was a redhead and I remembered years later it was a redhead who sewed me up after delivery. I guess he realised he’d forgotten to check it then.
Phew. I’m still here to tell the tale. I’ve recently stopped reliving it now too.
Nice post script every year for many years, on Joanna’s birthday Colin took me out for a meal and even now the girls still toast me being here too.
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