Last night I dreamt I was dying. And I clung so hard to life. Why?
Those who have had a near-death experience (NDE) report that the afterlife is so beautiful, the colors so vibrant, the peace and love so palpable that often they don’t want to return to this state that we call “life.”
Angels come to them or else spirits of loved ones who have passed over run out to greet them at the barrier. This boundary may be a meadow, a river, a fence line. It is a line we cannot cross until the “near” death becomes our final act.
Yet I woke up weeping. I didn’t want to die.
I think the angels sometimes envy us—our skin and hands with which we touch, feel, sense; our tongues to taste with; our eyes to see with; ears with which we hear. The angels are insubstantial, after all. No matter how they love, they cannot put their arms around their child, or smell the sweetness of her clean-washed hair. They cannot kiss the one they love, or intertwine their limbs; swim in ocean breakers; dive off cliffs or kayak against the thunderous waters of a waterfall; dance, ride a horse, taste the sweetness of a Vidalia onion or the tart of lemon: the sheer physicality of living life alive.
I wonder sometimes, do they envy us the beauty of drawing in a breath?
