Some years ago, I was privileged to survive a near death experience; my body ran out of oxygen, due to a pulmonary embolism (PE). On the way out, I saw from afar, myself going down a sheep drafting race, with a pen for the dying on the right and for the living on the left. It was my call as to which way the gate would swing. As I got closer, I could see my family and friends either fussing around my body and in other parts of the driveway, waiting for an ambulance. The sight of my young family, who presumably would grieve my passing, brought me to the hard decision to go left; turning right was so invitingly simple and calming. From that moment on, everything transformed into a fierce, internal concentration on living.
Subsequently I lost all dread of dying and even now still know the peace associated with slipping into the dying pen. My fear is not of dying, but of dying prematurely, in particular of dying from a debilitating or agonising non-communicable disease. The sense of a wasted life, or part of it, would be devastating, compared to the contentment of knowing that I was to die of old age.
Living into old age is only a worry if one’s activity or cognitive levels are severely reduced, otherwise the pleasures of seeing grandchildren married and great grandchildren growing up before finally slipping gently through the right hand gate, are well worth pursuing.
All it takes is to become physiologically comfortable by eating the right foods, allowing those foods to naturally enhance the best of body and brain activity and to avoid doctor’s prescriptions for cures of almost all non-communicable diseases.
I feel I am well on the way to this nirvana but remain aware that my previous food habits may disappointingly catch up on me, or that my new found energy may result in an energy related accident; what a pity.
Subsequently I lost all dread of dying and even now still know the peace associated with slipping into the dying pen. My fear is not of dying, but of dying prematurely, in particular of dying from a debilitating or agonising non-communicable disease. The sense of a wasted life, or part of it, would be devastating, compared to the contentment of knowing that I was to die of old age.
Living into old age is only a worry if one’s activity or cognitive levels are severely reduced, otherwise the pleasures of seeing grandchildren married and great grandchildren growing up before finally slipping gently through the right hand gate, are well worth pursuing.
All it takes is to become physiologically comfortable by eating the right foods, allowing those foods to naturally enhance the best of body and brain activity and to avoid doctor’s prescriptions for cures of almost all non-communicable diseases.
I feel I am well on the way to this nirvana but remain aware that my previous food habits may disappointingly catch up on me, or that my new found energy may result in an energy related accident; what a pity.
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