To the Hereafter and Back

O Death, in the glory of each day’s sun-rise I yearn re-live that fifth-dimension encounter with you. After a fall from my frisky horse put me into a seven-day coma, I found myself out of my body floating as light as air, brushing the roof of a strange room. I looked down to see my own body lying still upon a hospital bed. -- Look at that -- I said to myself, -- why are doctors and nurses fretting anxiously beside that insignificant carcass of my body? Why, are they creating so much fuss over a body that has no more meaning for me than an old discarded dress?

Was it you O Death, that wonderful sensation of freedom? Of lightness of being? I had no fear. Everything appeared normal, natural. I heard what the doctors and nurses were saying, but I also perceived their thoughts, I saw the room I was floating in, while simultaneously I saw the hospital gardens. Not only did I smell rose bushes and pine trees, I became the scent.

O Death, was it with you I dashed through a crystal tunnel as if propelled by a reckless wind? Was it you, the glorious light I penetrated? The love I embraced? Was it you the sensation of being at the source of life? Then as light, you penetrated me, and I melted into you, we dissolved into each other, into love, into indescribable happiness.

O Death, how long did you hold me in your arms? Why did you let me go? Did you not know the enormous pain, the anguish caused me by the sudden knowledge I could not remain in your eternal embrace? You never explained why I had to return to terrestrial life. Was I not deserving to be there with you???

I was alone walking on a mountain trail, snow was falling. In the blinding whiteness I became aware of a dreadful headache. Who was the old man I met sitting on the edge of the snow-covered cliff? I told him of my headache, he smiled suggesting I rub my pain with freshly fallen snow. I shut my eyes and did as I was told. The pain suddenly was gone.

When I reopened my eyes, I could not see the old man, the mountain or the snow, I was awake in a hospital room, glad my father was there to greet me. I had come back from a voyage to the beyond, but was I happy to be back? O Death where light and darkness merge, we’ll meet again, I know…

Retelling of the extra-terrestial experience of Grazia Cini, signora from Firenze, Italy