To Heaven and Back

by Mary C. Neal, M. D.

  As my physical state became one of recovery rather than survival, I was more fully absorbed back into the reality of this world. My ties with God’s world became less palpable until I was no longer able to pass between worlds or have conversations with angels. When my medical condition improved and my orthopaedic partners (including my husband) were able to agree upon a treatment plan, I was finally able to undergo the first of several operations to surgically repair my various injuries. With this beginning of physical recovery, I also began to feel pain.

  The rest of my time in the hospital was challenging for everyone. I was still trying to process all that I had witnessed and continued to meditate on the three verses from 1 Thessalonians, but both of my legs were in casts stretching from my toes to my hips so I was unable to move and was able to do very little. Bill was at work during the day, the older kids were in school, and Peter was with our nanny, Kasandra. Since I was on my back with only the ceiling for my entertainment, I counted the small holes in each ceiling tile again and again; first vertically, then horizontally, then diagonally. The excitement of coming up with the same number each time did little to diminish my boredom.

  Visitors were exhausting but served as bright interludes to this otherwise dreary time. One friend rolled my bed into the sunshine that was delightfully streaming through a hallway window, and one thoughtful friend brought me some lavender body lotion that smelled like a field of fresh blossoms. Each time I rubbed some of this lotion on my hands I would delight in its scent and be enveloped in a feeling of comfort and beauty. It meant so much to me at the time that I have saved the bottle. Now when I occasionally open it and inhale the remnants of its fragrance, I am immediately reminded of my feeling of delight and fondly remember the person who gave it to me.

  After more than a month in the hospital, I was not sorry to pack up my belongings and go home.

  CHAPTER 19

  MY PHYSICAL RECOVERY

  “Life isn’t about waiting for the showers to pass.

  It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

  —Vivian Greene

  I was excited to leave the hospital, but once I was home I was emotionally depressed and physically miserable. Yes, I found joy in my circumstances, but that did not change my tangible, daily, physical reality. I had solid casts on both legs, which extended from my groin to my toes. I wasn’t able to move around by myself, although I could stand upright on my own with a walker if someone first lifted me up. If no one was nearby to assist me, I was wheelchair-bound.

  Our rental house was probably built in the 1970s, with very narrow doors and hallways. A friend removed the doors from the hinges so I could be wheeled between my bedroom and the kitchen, but I was basically like a pet rock. After someone moved me into a room, I had to stay there until someone arrived to move me into a different location.

  While still in the hospital, I had developed blood clots in my legs that broke free and traveled to my lungs. To help dissolve the blood clots and avoid further complications, Bill gave me twice daily shots—not a pleasant experience for someone who detests being stuck with a needle. I was also taking narcotic pills for the pain and required help for even the most basic activities of daily living. The euphoria of visiting heaven was gone, replaced by the tedium of each day and the continued disbelief that I had been sent back to earth. I was really quite glum. I had always been physically active and strong, and being physically immobile was emotionally difficult for me. It was challenging to follow the disciple James’s dictum: “Consider it all joy … when you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.” I thought I had developed enough perseverance.

  Scott was one of the nurse’s aides at the hospital with whom Bill contracted to provide home health care to me a couple of times weekly. He was strong, nurturing, and always cheerful. I looked forward to these visits and relished the joyful energy he provided. He would move me from room to room, wash my hair, make my lunch, find the sunshine, and just sit with me. Despite these visits, I was languishing. Some of my more creative friends decided to take action; they attached two skis to the bottom of a snowmobile sled and built a seat inside the sled. They then attached a handle to the back of the sled, making it possible for Scott to load me into the sled and push me along the snow-covered street outside my house … I was thus capable of being taken for a walk like a baby in a pram!

  Sometimes I would be pushed slowly, but sometimes Scott would take me to one of the nearby hills and let me work up some speed in the sled while he ran behind. I began to take some short ski poles with me on these outings and I became fairly competent at sitting in the sled while jubilantly steering it by digging the poles into the snow on one side or the other. Traveling in the sled was the only time I felt mobile, so it was magnificent. When I was in the sled, I felt alive. My family began to call Scott “Sleigh Boy,” since all I wanted to do when he arrived was to load up the sleigh and have him take me out. Scott was so helpful in my recovery that I was a little sorry to say goodbye when I became strong enough and mobile enough to finally care for myself. He has since left our town and become a physician’s assistant. I have not heard from him in many years, but I recall him fondly and will always cherish the kindness he showed to me.

  My youngest son, Peter, was only 1 ½ years old when I had my kayaking accident. He had been the most hesitant to be near me while I was in the hospital, but he never left my side once I returned home. For many months, his love, constancy, comfort, and a shared knowledge of God’s presence kept me linked to him and, through him, to this world. Given his very young age, I believe he still remembered God’s world, which seemed to give him an understanding of the spiritual aspect of my experience and what I was going through. My older children were great sources of joy, reassurance, and inspiration, and Kasandra, our wonderful nanny, provided a great sense of stability to all of us.

  Although I was physically present in our home, I was emotionally absent. I was quite absorbed into my own world of physical recovery and emotional turmoil as I tried to process all that had happened to me. It took me more than a year to finally accept that not only had I been sent back to earth, but that I had work left to do. I was part of a family that I dearly loved, and I finally accepted that I better get on with my life and make the most of it. During this time, Bill was the glue that held our lives together. He worked full-time in his own orthopaedic practice, maintained my orthopaedic practice, cared for our children, changed Peter’s diapers, made sure everyone was fed, administered my shots, and organized my medical treatment, all while trying to process his own feelings of helplessness and grief about what had happened. Despite being emotionally and physically drained, he was exceptional.

  The community in which we live was also so supportive of our family that it can make me cry even now to think about it. Someone from our church or elsewhere in our community brought food to our house every night for many months. Occasionally, people would spend their weekend “holding down our fort” so that Bill could go skiing or do something else for himself. We had not lived in our community for very long before my accident so didn’t even know most of these people, and many of them did not know us. But they embraced our need nonetheless and their kindness to us was a tremendous blessing.

  Betsy, Peter, Willie, and Eliot just before our move to Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

  Years later, my oldest son, Willie, on his way to climb the Grand Teton.

  Bill and I relaxing in the Chilean sun before driving to the river.

  Bill and I are at the put-in for my run down the upper section of the Fuy. I am wearing his bright red paddling jacket.

  Looking down on a section of the Fuy River. This beautiful river is made inaccessible by it rocky banks and steep, thickly forested hillsides.

  I was pinned beneath the turbulence at the bottom of the drop to this kayaker’s left.

  Once I was medically stable, Willie, Betsy, Peter, Eliot, and I snuggled and watched movies from my
hospital bed.

  Walking was definitely a challenge, but it was a joy to be upright and somewhat mobile after being in a wheelchair for so long.

  I, Peter, Willie, Bill, Betsy, and Eliot. This Easter 2004 family vacation changed the course of our lives.

  October 2010; Betsy, Mary, Peter, Eliot and Bill on our first trip without Willie.

  I love the water and still enjoy kayaking whenever possible.

  I continue to find satisfaction as a surgeon, although I now try to integrate the spiritual component of healing.

  Willie posts his first “No Idling” sign in Jackson Hole. Since then, his message of making a difference has continued to inspire people, a growing number of Idle-reduction campaigns have been championed, and signs have been posted in at least thirty cities.

  CHAPTER 20

  BOB

  “I have fought the good fight,

  I have finished the race,

  I have kept the faith.”

  —2 Timothy 4:7 (NKJV)

  Two weeks after my discharge from the hospital, I received a phone call telling me that my father, Bob, was being taken off life-support. What??? Though my brain was working well and I could hear the words, I could not understand the information I was being given. I hadn’t even known my father was in the hospital, so how could I possibly understand that his life-sustaining ventilator was being removed?

  As the story unfolded, I discovered that two weeks earlier he wasn’t feeling well when he had had been visiting my brother in San Francisco. Upon his return to Michigan, he developed severe pneumonia. My father was admitted to the hospital for treatment, but when his condition did not improve with antibiotics, he was placed on a ventilator in an attempt to improve his oxygen transfer. His condition continued to worsen despite this aggressive care and, when his internal organs sequentially failed, my stepmother made the decision to remove his external life support. Inexplicably, she had also made the decision not to contact me or any of my three siblings (we were all children from his previous marriage) when he was hospitalized, when his conditioned worsened, or before she made the final decision of removing his external life support.

  Over the years, my father’s relationship with my siblings and me had been strained by the circumstances in which he lived. He often spoke of how he desperately wanted a close relationship with each of us, but that his wife was entirely unsupportive of this and presented many obstacles. She was a widow with five children, several of whom still lived at home with her and my father. I just don’t think she wanted to accept the fact that my father had a life prior to their marriage or that he had four grown children of his own. She prevented him from having our photographs in their house, calling us from their home, or going out of his way to visit us. He cried often when discussing this with us, but was unable, or unwilling, to demand change. My father’s impending death would make the strained relationships final and abolish any possibility of reconciliation. For these reasons, I knew the importance of our seeing our father before his last thread of connection to life was severed.

  Without speaking to my stepmother, I contacted my father’s attending physician and pleaded with him to maintain the life support until my siblings and I could arrive. Although this would require my father to be on the ventilator an extra day or two, as we were each coming from distant parts of the country, he very grudgingly agreed to do so. I am chagrined to admit that his agreement came only after I acted like a bully.

  My siblings were at the airport when I arrived and we drove directly to my father’s hospital. When I entered the room where my father was lying in his hospital bed, I saw that he was sedated and the ventilator was rhythmically pushing air in and out of his lungs. Although he was still “alive,” I had the overwhelming sense, really more of a deep knowledge, that his soul had already departed from his body. He was already dead. Although it is a commonly-held belief that a person’s soul departs at the moment of their physical death, I have come to believe that the departure of the soul defines and determines the moment of death, rather than the body’s physical death determining the moment of the soul’s departure. With the use of modern medicine and technology, the organism that is our human body may continue to physically function and appear to be “alive,” but unless God sees a purpose to return the soul to its body, the person is essentially dead. Not only had I witnessed this during my surgical training, but there are far too many accounts of near-death experiences in which there is a description of the soul departing the shell of its not-yet physically dead body to ignore this reality.

  My father had been a vivacious, active, and physically fit man. He and his twin brother had been National Collegiate Athletic Association track stars, part of an elite crowd of champions and members of the NCAA Hall of Fame. My emotions were mixed as I had a chance to sit alone in the hospital room with my father’s now pale and somewhat shrunken body. I felt joy for him—for his reunion with God—and I felt a little bit sorry for myself, as I still had not reconciled the need for my own return to earth from the river bank in Chile. I regretted that I did not have a final opportunity to express my love and gratitude to Dad for his life, and even more deeply saddened that I never had the opportunity to tell him of my recent experiences in heaven. I could have given him a glimpse of the great joy awaiting his arrival and I think that hearing about it would have made his departure more tranquil.

  My brothers, Rob and Bill, my sister, Betsy, our stepmother, and I were at my father’s bedside when the ventilator tube was removed from his body and he slowly took his last breath.

  Afterward, Rob, Bill, Betsy, and I returned to our hotel room, where we reminisced, cried, and laughed long into the night as each of us recalled our childhood adventures with our father. We spent the next several days organizing the flowers and programs, while our stepmother tended to other aspects of his memorial service. To be fair, I should say that my siblings did the organizing while I waited in the car or wherever else they put me since both of my legs were still immobilized in long casts and it was a slow struggle for me to follow them with my walker.

  I already described the First Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Michigan, as being elegant, old, and beautiful. During my father’s funeral, the large, traditional stained glass windows bathed the main sanctuary with an array of color. As I sank into the familiar front row pew, I allowed my mind to go backward in time to embrace and re-experience the wonder I always felt as a child when looking at the images in those same windows.

  My father had been well known and well respected in our state, and it seemed that everyone in the region had turned out to pay their last respects. It was a long service, but the attendees were patient as I was painstakingly helped to rise from my wheelchair and step up to the podium to deliver one of his eulogies. By the time the bagpipes played “Amazing Grace” at the end of the service, I was thoroughly exhausted.

  My trip back to Wyoming required a change of planes in Cincinnati, Ohio. My flight to Salt Lake City was just beginning to board when the fire alarm in the terminal sounded. Despite having traveled extensively, I never had this experience and will probably never encounter it again! Everyone in the terminal was instructed to exit the building and stand outside on the tarmac. I tried to follow these instructions but had no one to help me as I rolled myself along with the crowd. I was soon stranded in my wheelchair at the top of a very long stairway leading to the tarmac and, as the other people streamed outside, I began to cry in frustration.

  I was feeling extremely sorry for myself and my situation. There were no airport employees anywhere in sight and, thinking that it was more important for Bill to stay in Wyoming with our children, I had declined Bill’s offer to travel with me to Michigan. I just couldn’t believe that after all I’d been through I was going to die in a fire. I didn’t even have a working cell phone to call for help or to phone in my last goodbyes! After a while, an airport employee saw me and, when I explained my predicament, told me, “Don’t worry about it. It’s just a false alar
m anyway.”

  Okay. God still had plans for me.

  CHAPTER 21

  MY BELOVED GEORGE

  “You will find as you look back upon

  your life that the moments when you

  have really lived, are the moments when you

  have done things in a spirit of love.”

  —Henry Drummond

  After my return from Michigan, my mother arrived in Jackson Hole to help care for me and to help my husband care for our children. The day after her arrival, we discovered that my stepfather, like my father several weeks earlier, had just been admitted to his local hospital with a case of pneumonia. This was not George’s first bout of pneumonia, as he had a form of myelodysplasia, which is a blood disorder that frequently results in pneumonia. Remarkably, my father’s pneumonia was caused by a similar blood disorder; something he had been living with but had kept secret until his final hospitalization. I spoke with George’s physician, who reassured me that my stepfather appeared to be responding well to the antibiotics, so we should not be overly concerned.

  Despite this reassurance, my mother and I considered whether or not she should return to North Carolina to be with George. As we pondered this issue over our morning coffee, a great grey owl swooped down and landed on the deck railing adjacent to our breakfast area. Having never seen this type of owl, we were awed and stood to admire it.