Part 3

 I take yet another detour… My last memory was leaving the office at 12:15 P.M… My next memory was that of my mother, standing next to me, yet she had passed away in 1991, 15 years earlier.

I must have realized what was happening as I thought to myself: “Bernie, don’t be a baby about this, you know this happens to everybody. Do not be a fucking baby.” (I assume that if I thought I was dying, with my mother at my side whom I was very close to, I didn’t want her to see me die like a “little baby.”) I proceeded to put my left arm around her and my right hand on her chest.

I felt completely content; at peace; happy. Actually, I felt in awe; fascinated. Experiencing the process, I remember thinking: “Wow, who would have thought that this is how it happens.”

It was like watching a billion dominoes falling sequentially; none of them are going to fall out of place. We have more than one billion cells in our body and I was watching and feeling them “change.” That’s the best word to describe what I felt was happening. All my cells were “changing.” It was happening so systematically and orderly, it was quite fascinating and visually very beautiful. I was completely astonished. And then the realization hit me, and it hit me hard, and I went into a complete panic. For the first time in all this process, the contentment; the feeling of completeness, evaporated, and I panicked. I realized that I didn’t have too long left!

I let go of my mother, and in an absolute panic I said to her: “Mami… Dios Mio… Yo no puedo dejar que esto pase… Si yo dejo que esto pase, cuando lleguen mis hijos, no les voy a poder decir lo que paso.” ( For those of you who are languge impaired: “Mom, My God… I can’t let this happen… If I let this happen, when my kids get here, I won’t be able to tell them what happened. )

What she told me was probably what turned everything around for me. I’ve reflected on it many times and I believe it may very well be one of the unknown secrets of life and death – she says to me: “Es tu decision…Tu eres el que escoges.” ( Ditto: “It’s for you to decide… You are the one that chooses” )

Without her having to explain what she meant, I knew exactly what she meant – We choose our moment, and without a moment’s hesitation, I chose for that not to be my moment. That moment validated my beliefs in destiny. There is a destiny, and the sometimes not so funny part of it is we choose it; our destiny. But destiny is not magical or spiritual, or written in some book as a component of life. It’s a purely mathematical equation as in, “the destiny of 2 plus 2 is four” (2 plus 2 can have no other destiny). The only way we can change the “destiny” of 2 plus 2, is to throw in another variable. Of course, then it wouldn’t be “2 plus 2” any longer. The destiny of 2 plus 2 plus 2, is 6. And no matter how much you resist, how much you pontificate, the “destiny” of “2 plus 2 plus 2,” and without a shadow of a doubt it has a “destiny,” will always, be 6. 

We, all of us, have a destiny, and that destiny is the sum of all the variables, all the moments that tick by, whether within our control or not, of our making or not, that make up our life.

If one looks at it from a religious perspective it makes sense, we were given free will. Why would that free will not extend to staying, or letting go, if and when we have that choice to make.

I haven’t had a loved one pass away since my experience, but I think my emotions would be different now than prior to April 2006. I don’t know if you have gone through the death of a loved one recently and I’m sorry if you have. But the way I’ve always felt, and really do still feel this way, is that if I had my way I would leave this life first, before any of my loved ones. Personally, I’m too sensitive and love too deeply to experience the death of someone I love and not have it devastate me.

But as I see it now, when a loved one dies we really should be happy instead of grieving. We should be happy with the belief that our loved one, chose that moment to leave us and move on.

(to be continued in Part 4)