I scurried off to explore. Under bridge, just a few feet above water, a large pipe ran across river. I was born a curious child and that pipe looked enticing. I would make a game of crossing water by straddling pipe and scooting back and forth.

I was playing contentedly like this when suddenly, I slipped and fell in. The water engulfed me and I began gasping for air. I didn't know how to swim. With each gasp, I sank deeper and deeper. As my lungs filled with water, my instincts kicked in. I knew what was happening to me, and I fought desperately to reach surface of water. Darkness closed in around me as sunlight above me slipped further and further from my grasp. Soon, I was weak and going limp. I could see only darkness. There was nothing. No thoughts, no feelings. And it was eternal.

But only for a moment! Because suddenly, directly in front of me, in midst of this darkness was a bright, sparkly sunbeam. A voice within me said, "BREATHE!" I knew this was it: my last breath, my last chance to escape darkness. With all of my might, I inhaled as deeply as I could.

The inhale propelled me forward, into sunbeam and I began rising to surface. The inhale continued. I reached surface and kept on rising.

Several yards above water, I looked back down and saw my dad running over to pipe. I could hear his thoughts like a mantra, "Get baby, save baby..."

I was at Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia. I had just been told that I had a "blockage" in my spinal cord, from fourth to seventh cervical vertebrae at level of neck, that had been responsible for symptoms I had been experiencing. My right arm was paralyzed, my legs were spastic, and there were sensations like electric shocks running through my body when I moved my head. I was told that I had to have an operation immediately, and that if I lived through operation, I might come out of it a quadriplegic. When I asked if I had time for a second opinion, I was told that if I coughed or sneezed at that time, I might die. Naturally, I agreed to have operation in a few hours.

I realized that according to what doctors had said, I might be dead in a few hours. I went through stages that many people go through when they know they are about to die. First, there was sense that this was a movie set, and that these things were not really happening to me. I found myself negotiating with what was happening, bargaining if I could, for something different to happen. Slowly, realization that it was real, and happening to me, came closer and closer, until I had to emotionally accept that I might very soon be dead.

When I accepted unacceptable, my body shook violently as an intensity of energy moved through me. I opened more and more to it, and after one or two very long minutes it was complete. I felt a calm inside that I had not known before. All my senses were sharper. My vision was clearer. Colors were brighter. Hearing was clearer. Sensations were more alive.

I realized that I had released a perceptual filter that had been standing between me and experience of life, and ironically, it had been fear of death. Now that I had released that fear, I was experiencing more of life, more of being alive, even if just for a short while longer.

I thought of life I had lived, and things I could have done but didn't, and I found myself saying to myself, "I wish I had." There were a lot of "I wish I hads." I thought to myself that it was, in fact, a sad way to end a life, and that if I had to do it again, there would be a lot of "I'm glad I dids."

I had to decide what I wanted to do with short time I had left. If I spent my remaining time worrying or feeling bad about what was, in fact, inevitable, I would have just wasted rest of my life, thrown it away, and it was too valuable for that. I decided to spend my remaining time feeling good, and just thinking of things that helped me to feel good - color of paint on walls, smell of flowers in room, anything positive. I knew I could always find something.

Finally, time came. I was taken to operating room, and as I was being given anesthetic, I thought that this might be last experience I would ever have. I had no idea what might come afterwards. I had been agnostic, with no beliefs, believing in nothing that I had not experienced. Perhaps next step after death was just oblivion. I let go.

I began to experience a vertigo, a sense of spinning, and it didn't feel good, so I stabilized myself in center of it until I was still, and everything else was spinning around me. I was moving through spinning scenes, which were memories from life I had lived, memories which were calling for my attention. If I put my attention on them, though, I felt myself "pulled," because I was moving through these spinning memories, like being pulled through a tunnel, or falling down a well, but discovering that half-way down well. Reaching for walls would not work. My only hope would be to aim for water at bottom.