It’s time, I suppose, to talk about where the meadow shots came from.

It’s time to write down the journey I took to the other side during or after my open heart surgery on July 1. I need to write it down now because I am able to – I was not before – and because I don’t want to forget it or lose the sense of it if I wait to long. It was a great adventure, it may have been a dream, a visitation, a dream, a drug-induced fantasy. I don’t know, I will never know.  A doctor I liked told me that when your heart is stopped you die in a sense, your body stops functioning, it is taken over by medications solutions.

Your spirit, she said, can go places, it is free.

You will be, she said,  in a state of suspended animation, and the difference between this kind of death and a permanent one is that most of the time, you are returned to life. It is a powerful and mysterious state to be in, she said, people are known to see things and go places.  Doctors can’t come along, machines don’t record it,  nobody knows what happens out there, in that twilight time between life and death, wakefulness and the deepest sleep.

***

I had read some powerful accounts of the trips people take in surgery. Like most patients, I wanted to be put to sleep before I saw too much and felt too much. I knew what they were going to do to me, I did not want to see any of it.

They brought me to a prep room, Maria and I, our own nurse. She asked me a dozen questions – name, age, birthday, social security number, she told me about the dangers, the risks, I had to sign more papers, Maria was beside me. Then, I had to go on my own, Maria couldn’t come. I was taken into surgery about 1 p.m., the last thing I remember was the tears in Maria’s eyes as she saw me rolled out and blew me one last kiss.

I remember feeling so badly that she had to undergo this worry and trouble, I think it is harder to watch sometimes, than to experience things. She looked so sad, so worried. We understood the moment, we didn’t need to speak of it. We expected to see one another again, but we knew we might not.

We were not dramatic about this, we both decided without discussing it to be matter-of-fact, and really, there are no good words to say at such a moment other than “I love you, and will see you soon.” She squeezed my hand as they wheeled me to the surgical suite.

***

I remember a bright room, big, powerfully lit, all kinds of machines and monitors, a score of people, a nurse’s assistant asking me if I was comfortable, there were people all over me, inserting lines, attaching tubes and things, I remember a nurse attaching something to my neck, and then I remember nothing. Sometime later, I don’t know if it was during surgery or in the intensive care unit, I found myself in a different place. Rose rushed past me, on the run, and I saw Maria up on a hillside, waving to me gently, a sad and yearning look on her face. It was a beautiful place, a soft yellow meadow, a golden field, there were trees on the horizon, clear blue skies, clouds in a calm sky, a sea of wildflowers.

***

When I began walking on Macmillan Road and suddenly saw the beautiful meadow, I remembered why I was so struck by it when I had not seen it before, it took me back to the other side, it was so much like the meadow there, and I began photographing it. It is eerie and emotional for me to see these photos, they bring me back to that time, that place. I never saw the beauty in the meadow before, I saw it in that other place.

There were older women there, they were dignified,  beautiful in their way, they were walking in the meadow together, one was drawing, the other two were talking, they turned to me and smiled at me, they seemed especially comforting and loving. You are okay, they said, you are all right, you can trust us, this is a safe place, they said. We love you, you know.

Rose and Maria were gone, I was walking, I was alone, I felt no pain, no weight. I knew without being told that these women were death, no skulls or scythes or wings. We do love you, they said, we accept who you are, we are not here to take you away or make decisions about you. We are not frightening. Death and life are different ends of the same candle. You can make whatever decisions you wish, you can come with us or go back. This is your time, your moment. The world of your imagination is right here for you, waiting for you.

I was not frightened, I was excited by this choice, perhaps relieved. I felt nothing in my chest, it was as if my heart had been removed, and maybe it had been, perhaps this was all during surgery. I want to go back, I said, I am not done, I am not nearly done. Yes, one of the woman said, nodding, we see that. I was afraid they might argue with me, but they didn’t, they knew me, heard me. The thing is, going back is a choice, a decision, they said. That’s what gives it meaning and purpose. It’s a rebirth, if you wish to see it that way.

They gave me a cup of water to drink, I was so thirsty, and suddenly, so tired.  I sat down, I was suddenly weak, almost dizzy. I have a lot of things to do, I said. You do, said one of the women, although cannot recall her lips moving, only her voice. It is important to remember that. I sat down, I was so tired, and one of the woman mopped my brow with a cool cloth. Up on the hill, I saw my father, we had been estranged from one another all of my life, he raised his arm to me, as if in a greeting, but did not come closer. You have to walk, I heard him say. He was an athlete, he believed so much in the power of the body. We never really talked, not once.

It was so hard sometimes, I said to the women. I waited too long, I worked so hard.  I’m not ready. We know, said one, we know that. I’m not finished, I have so many things to do, I said, as if to persuade them. But they didn’t need persuasion. Then there seemed to be one woman talking to me, her face was lined, her eyes sad and very wise. I know, she said, I know what has happened to you. So it is a decision, you see, your decision, you have decided to go back, to finish, to complete your work. You have a lot to do. You have to walk, there it was again.

And then, I opened my eyes, slowly, it took a while to focus, there was a bright light, many beeping things, a great weight in my chest, and a nurse was standing over me, and she said, “hey Jon,” and she pulled tubes out of my throat and neck, and told me there were more tubes in my chest and stomach, they had to stay.

“Can you hear me?,” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, “let’s walk.”

She asked me about painkillers, she had some in her hand, and I said no, I didn’t need any.  I felt no pain, none, anywhere in my scarred and ravaged body, I felt more like a machine than a human being then.

“What?,” she said.

“I think we need to walk.”

She laughed. “No one has ever asked me that just when they woke up,” she said.

“If you wish, we can walk.” And we did walk, two times around the unit, on a walker with wheels, trailing beeping monitors, tubes and drains all the way down to the floor,  the other nurses started and shook their heads. “No one has ever done that when they woke up,” she said.

I had to walk. It was the light, it was life, healing and recovery, it was the way forward, the rebirth.

And then I laid down and collapsed in bed and fell back to sleep, and when I opened my eyes next, I saw Maria rounding the corner, a wide smile on her face as she saw me sitting up, and behind her, my daughter, looking relieved, uncomfortable, concerned.

And so that, finally, is the story of my trip to the other side, you can make as much out of it as me. I don’t know if it was a dream, a vision, a journey, a fantasy. But I knew I had to love and I had to walk, and I have been loving and walking ever since.