Life After Death?

Claudette Esterine 

Standing on a footstool, I looked into his chest cavity for close to eight hours.

Those eight hours taught me that there is no death.

As far back as I can recall, death terrified me. In preschool, throughout my primary school and high school years the mere mention of the word "death," would cause my body to spasm.

My first acquaintance with death was in my 10th or so year when two people who were fairly well known to me met their "untimely" death. One was a boy of my age, and with whom I would romp the school grounds and the streets of our neighborhood - Pembroke Hall. He was crushed to death one evening by a truck going too fast through the community.

The second was a quite popular Rastafarian man, who was something of a jock and who loved to "dally" on his motorbike. Think we called him 'Bull' and one day, he zipped once too often between vehicles on the same drive where my school mate was killed.

Both 'men' died swiftly and their blood splattered and smeared Pembroke Hall Drive for weeks. Every day that I had to walk pass the spots, although revolted by the sight of the blood, I was nonetheless curious about their souls. My feet would linger long enough for my eyes to search for them in the shadows of the nearby trees. Folklore had it that they both had been seen there but I dared not go by at night.

I never saw them. Neither did I see the soul of the patient who had been wheeled in for a triple bypass.

My fear of death was being challenged by my residency as a hospital chaplain. If you know me, then you would understand that backing down from a 'challenge' is not what I do. When our supervisor instructed us to choose a topic to write a major reflection paper on - I decided to go in search of the soul.

It was the first time a resident-chaplain had elected to observe a surgery in this hospital. Maybe that explains the surgeon's decision to test my mettle. Little did he know that I would not back down or run out of the operating theatre screaming.

Had I known beforehand that my "observation" point was not from an enclosed glass viewing room overlooking the surgery, maybe I would have. When I arrived at the hospital's surgical ward just before 4:00a.m. and was led directly to the theatre area and was told to scrub in, my knees buckled.

Image: hollywoodanesthesia.com

"Scrub in? Why?"

The news that I was to actually be right beside the surgeon, his instruction, shocked but provoked my sense of adventure. The scrubbing in process in itself was exhilarating and quite technical, particularly for someone like me who eats over her computer - my operating table.

Patient X was wheeled in for what should have been a triple bypass, duration of which was anticipated to be between five to six hours. My guest supervisor, the surgeon, wanted to ensure that I had the full experience.  He must have been amused about my quest.

For eight hours, I watched as Patient X was anaesthetized, blood vessel removed from his leg, his chest opened, his heart removed and placed on ice while some was packed into his chest cavity. The surgeon and his assistants got to work repairing Patient X's heart, declaring that it was worse than they thought.

Image: news.discovery.com

I was moved from the foot of the surgical table to the side then my guest supervisor invited me to come stand on the footstool above Patient X's head, looking straight into his chest cavity. I did not back down.

Neither did I see his soul.

Eight hours later, heart returned to his body and the machinery that was pumping his blood switched off, my search for the soul ended as Patient X's heart took over its job.

Unable to sleep, I stayed awake for 24 more hours and wrote my reflection paper. Crying, no weeping, as I wrote, my conclusion was that there must be life after death OR that there really is no death.

Eight years, one failed marriage, career change, unemployment, near homelessness and one high risk relationship later and I now am convinced that Life and Death, Beginning and End are one.

I love what Meg Rosoff wrote about death, endings and beginnings:

"I am almost a hundred years old; waiting for the end, and thinking about the beginning. 

There are things I need to tell you, but would you listen if I told you how quickly time passes?
I know you are unable to imagine this.

Nevertheless, I can tell you that you will awake someday to find that your life has rushed by at a speed at once impossible and cruel. The most intense moments will seem to have occurred only yesterday and nothing will have erased the pain and pleasure, the impossible intensity of love and its dog-leaping happiness, the bleak blackness of passions unrequited, or unexpressed, or unresolved."

Do enjoy the rest of the day. Leave a comment here, or on our Facebook page sharing with us your thoughts on this topic. You may also follow us on Twitter.

Namaste


Claudette Esterine is the Founder of Daughters of Sheba Foundation and Editor of our blog. She is a Jamaican-Canadian and a Free Spirit.