Vic tells a story of how his near-death experience resulted in far more than his own peace of mind about what it’s like to die; it led to a new, life-saving medical procedure, and it helped an anonymous nurse find the courage she didn’t think she had.

It all began with a routine colonoscopy. Vic was accustomed to the procedure, since he’d had cancer previously, and he was now required to have regular examinations to prevent it from coming back. On this day, the doctors found a polyp and removed it. This was not unusual either, says Vic. He’d had polyps removed before.

This time, however, something was different. A few hours after Vic returned home following the day surgery, he realized he was bleeding, and quite badly. It took some time for the hospital staff to realize how serious his condition was; but, eventually they began giving him blood—at the extremely fast rate of one unit every fifteen minutes.

What doctors and nurses didn’t realize was that Vic has a condition that causes his white blood cells to clump together when he receives a blood transfusion.

“I was dying,” says Vic.

“…I faded to black. Then I was sitting in a chair facing… (my) inner master. There was a white cloud around us and what appeared to be a highly polished black floor below.”

The following is the conversation Vic remembers having with the spiritual master he calls Wah Z:

Wah Z: Do you want to live or die?

Vic: I have never died in full consciousness before; it might be an exciting experience.

Wah Z: This is it.

Vic: (astonished) This is it?

Wah Z: This is it.

Vic: Well, if this is it, it’s not very exciting. This is just a shift of consciousness, and I do this just about every day when I contemplate.

Wah Z: Do you want to live or die?

Vic: I do want to live.

Immediately, Vic says, “I came back to the physical and opened my eyes, seeing the heart paddle just above my chest, and asked what was going on…”

But Vic’s adventure with life and near-death was not over. He was still in hospital with no obvious way to stop his bleeding. That evening his doctor stopped by to say with great regret that he would have to leave, because he promised his daughter he would attend her first piano recital that evening.

“I replied, ‘It’s okay, Ron. Family is very important. Go enjoy it. We said good-bye.”

But, later that night, Dr. Ron returned. “An idea came to me when I was listening to my daughter’s recital. Can I try it?” he said.

Having learned that death was no big deal, Vic was unafraid, even though he still had things he wanted to do in this physical life. So, he agreed. But, then came the next snag: Dr. Ron was going to have to insert a camera into Ron’s colon, so he’d be able to see where to put a clip on the part that was bleeding, and he needed a nurse to assist him. However, the nurse on duty declined to help because she was unsure about the procedure.

“I can’t do it by myself,” Dr. Ron told Vic.

Vic surprised even himself with what he said next: “Tell her…if she can live with the fact she watched a man die and did not even try to save him, and she is OK with that; then, I’m OK with that, too.”

Soon after, Dr. Ron returned ready to do the procedure. Vic watched on a monitor as Dr. Ron placed, not one but two, clips on the bleeding section of his colon.

“We all signed a breath of relief,” says Vic. “Since I had not seen or heard the nurse, I asked Dr. Ron to say thank-you to her for having the courage to do this and save my life. I thanked him as well for the creative solution that came to him during his daughter’s piano recital.”

A couple of years after his near-death experience, Vic was once again in hospital for a routine colonoscopy. Making conversation, he told a nurse that he almost died from loss of blood as a result of his last one.

“Why didn’t they put a clip on it?” asked, incredulous.

“Because I was patient zero,” answered Vic. “I was the first patient that procedure was ever tried on. Now it’s standard practice.”

Looking back on all that happened, Vic is grateful for the whole experience. “I think of how, when you throw a stone in the water, you don’t know how the ripples are going to affect others. This one incident of my bleeding colon has had a beneficial effect on so many others. I had the courage to risk a then-untried procedure that could have ended my life, because I knew that death was just a shift in consciousness.”

At the same time, because Vic said he was willing to die, a nurse found the courage that helped save his life.

Still, says Vic, while his experiences have enabled him to see more clearly than ever that consciousness—or Soul—lives on, no matter what the body, it’s important to keep everything in perspective: “As magnificent as that whole experience was, I can still whimper and cry with the best of them. But it’s okay to be human,” he says. “We all need rest points on the journey of eternity.”

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The Meaning of Forever Project invites your stories of how near-death experiences, or experiences with loved ones who have passed on, have comforted you and helped you to understand the continuing nature of life; that love and life go on, even after our physical bodies expire. You can learn more about The Meaning of Forever Project from our web site, or from our Facebook page. Feel free to join us on Facebook, or by following this blog—and please share with your friends.

It can happen that we become so caught up in our grief that we fail to see the signs our loved ones are sending to show us they are just fine in their new existences. Darlene tells a story of how a case like this played out after her dear friend passed away.

By Darlene Montgomery

Thomas Drayton was my best friend. We’d met during the breakup of significant relationships in both our lives. We’d both had a powerful spiritual experience and been left wandering and wondering about our direction. We found each other in San Francisco at a seminar for our church, ECKANKAR, and had been friends ever since.

To say that Thomas was an enigma would fall short of the wonders of his character. To describe Thomas, I’ll start with his one eye. He was blinded as a teen when someone had thrown a rock up in the air and it landed on his eye. So Thomas often wore a patch. But he saw more with his one eye then most saw with two. Thomas was a mystery to all, except his closet friends; and even we, sometimes, had trouble penetrating the mystique of his profoundly creative, spiritual character.

Throughout our years of friendship, Thomas and I traveled together, spent time on the phone, went to movies, cried, laughed, fought and shared our writing. Mostly I listened to the reams and reams of poetry my friend composed while he lay awake night after night. You see, Thomas hardly ever slept more than three or four hours. He had several books of poetry published throughout the years, all of a profound and spiritual nature.

Thomas was struck down by cancer suddenly one summer. It came on so quickly and it took him all too fast. Fortunately, I was able to say goodbye. One evening just before he died, I visited him in the hospital. I entered the room to find Thomas looking gaunt, with the signs of death on his face and body. His spirit, though, filled the room with light and a profound sense of God. Thomas became even more of the person he was as he surrendered his spirit to the divine.

That night, I found myself feeling awkward, as I sat in shock, staring at his face which had shrunk in the four days since I last saw him. I knew that he would be leaving this earth very soon. He asked me, “Are you shocked? Do I look like Lily did before she died?” A friend of mine had died just two weeks earlier from a long battle with cancer.

“Yes.” I said, and stumbled to ask him, “Will you give me a …”

“Sign?” he filled in. “Yes.”

I had to leave town for few days to attend a conference. I was filled with angst—even though, in my religion, we refer to death as “translation” because we see it as a transition from one state of consciousness to another. Even so, I wondered: What if Thomas translated before I returned? I didn’t think I could deal with that.

But he managed to hang on another week. I was able to see him one last time, although he was past being able to communicate by then. Thomas left his physical form on October 24, 2007 in the late afternoon, surrounded by family.

This was my first great loss of someone close to me through death (or translation) and I went into a profound state of shock. I waited for the promised sign. Days passed. A week or more came and went.

“I guess I’m not going to get a sign,” I thought.

A few weeks after that, I stumbled into the living room of my apartment after waking one morning. Lying on top of the small entrance table was a ticket stub from a play that my daughter had dropped. It had been there since the night Thomas translated, but in my grief, I’d left it, never bothering to pick it up. I reached down and started to actually read the words on the ticket.

“Crazy for You,” it said. In the left-hand corner was the word Drayton.

 Crazy for you. My eyes welled up with tears as I realized Thomas had given me my sign weeks ago, if only I’d noticed: The play had been produced by Drayton Productions, on Drayton Avenue in—yes—the Town of Drayton! The date of the play: October 24, 2007, the evening Thomas left this world for his journey to the heavens beyond.

So much like Thomas to slip that one by me. I laughed then, for the first time in a while.

I’ve kept the ticket. I love you Thomas. I’m crazy for you, too.

Darlene Montgomery is author of the Conscious Women Conscious Lives Series

And Dream Yourself Awake: One Woman’s Journey to Discover Her Life Mission through Dreams. You can find out more about her work here. http://www.lifedreams.org/