THE ADVENTURE OF DYING.

Putaruru Press, Volume VI, Issue 234, 26 April 1928, Page 1

THE ADVENTURE OF DYING.

THE INEVITABLE JOURNEY. The Border of Infinity. [This is a true siory of an operation for cancer. Tire writer, Mr. W. C. Edgar, of 12 (.3, Second Avenue South, Minneapolis, is a well-known journalist. The incident described took place five years ago. Since then he has had no return of the symptoms and may be considered definitely cured.—Ed. Spectator] I suppose the most thrilling adventure an individual ever has in life is the passage from this world to the next. Few, however, having gone far enough on this inevitable journey to reach the border of infinity, return to tell of their sensations as they apparently crossed the line into the ceuntry beyond human ken. This perhaps is natural, considering the mystery involved in the translation from the known to the unknown, but I am now sure that to live in constant fear of death, as if it I were some cruel monster, forever hovering over and threatening to | swoop down, more or less suddenly, and carry one off from all that is dear and familiar, to unknown terrors, is not only to suffer in imagination a thousand deaths, but, if my experience is of any value, it is wholly unnecessary. The writer proceeds to narrate the j medical examination and the reasons J which led to his being placed on the [ operating table.

Except for the local anaesthetic, applied to the affected region, which rendered it insensible to pain, I was given nothing, to make me oblivious. I remained to the end fully conscious of all the proceedings. I saw the master surgeon in his working uniform bending over my prostrate body, the pretty little nurse standing by my head, ready to give me an injection of ether should I feel the need of it, and the other attendants and assistants. My own doctor stood beside me, watching me, and holding my wrist in his hand, observant of the fluctuations of my pulse. From time to time I exchanged words with those near by. Finally I brought to the occasion the instincts of a trained journalist. I thought to myself : “ This is an interesting event in which I happen to take the leading part. I am about to enter the famous Valley of the Shadow of Death', and few are they who have returned therefrom to tell the tale. Perhaps, even probably, I shall never emerge. Fortunately my wits are all with me. I am not approaching the ultimate finish like a dull and senseless clod, drugged into unconsciousness. I am able to see and hear and reason clearly, and will be to the end. This is an unusual and very great privilege, and it behoves me, as a member of my craft, to make careful and accurate notes of this adventure as it proceeds, and to be very clear concerning it, in all its details.”

There was a certain comfort, almost- exaltation, in this impersonal reasoning which I maintained to the finish. Meantime the surgeon proceeded. After a period that seemed long, hut was probably brief, I began to be conscious of a dual personality housed within one frame ; the external body lying prone and helpless on the table beneath the surgeon’s skilful knife, and an essence of life within me which rose and fell in alternate waves of vitality, as it were like the rise and fall of a rapidlymoving thermometer. Simultaneously with this sensation of an ebbing and returning life essence, which seemed to recede further, or fall deeper, and to return less abundantly and less surely with each recurrent movement, I became absolutely convinced, beyond the faintest shadow of a doubt, that this life element within me was indestructable ; heretofore existed, it would survive and henceforth would surely be imperishable. This then, I thought, is Ihe spiritual body, destined to survive and triumph over so-called death. It was true ; life undoubtedly persisted be- ' yond that of the natural body. In a few minutes, perhaps, I would aetu- | ally be living it. The thought made | me at once independent of all human environment.

Thenceforth I became as a purelydisinterested observer of events. In the outcome I was not especially interested—it seemed a comparativelytrifling matter. If I had any definite bias, so far as I myself was concerned, it was in favour of going on to the unknown rather than returning to the natural life and its vexations.

As against this course I reflected that there were others who had a right to be considered. There were my own family and friends, who naturally wished me to continue to live, and there were the surgeon, my doctor and all the others concerned in this attempt to keep me on earth, who were making such a magnificent fight to save my natural life ; these challenged my sense of loyalty. It was clearly my duty to play the game from their standpoint of what constituted victory, and to do my utmost to co-operate with them even if it were easier and far more agreeable to me personally to slip gently into the other world on the next inevitable recession of the life essence. As vitality waned once more I put ( forth, reluctantly but earnestly, my utmost powers of resistance, and so flickered back in time to renew anI other and deeper plunge. Glancing at the face of my physician, as I again descended toward the border line of the natural life, I observed it was very white and drawn. Afterwards he told me that my heart had been alarmingly ; affected and that several times he thought I was about to go. This must have been at the uttermost ebbs of the vital urge, when I asked myself if the end had actually arrived and if I was really off on the great adventure. Repeatedly, and with lessened intervals, the process of ebbing and flowing continued. There came one moment which seemed the supreme and final throb of expiring life, but again it came sluggishly flowing back. During all this time there was no pain whatever. Increasingly I was convinced that the vital part of me was not going to die, whatever happened, but merely to change the form and texture of its continuing existence. The absolute certainty that death, so-called, was not the end, hut merely a new beginning, was pre-eminent in my mind. Of this I had not the faintest doubt, although I did not conjecture what this new life was like, nor had I any desire to speculate as to this. It was enough to feel assured, as I did, that there was nothing to fear in it. Had I lived a blameless mortal life, which I had not, I could not have felt less remorse for the past. There was no regret of lost opportunities, no mental reviewing of life’s history, no concern Whatever, either for reward or punishment to come in the Country beyond—only a strong and abiding strength of calmness and peace. i

Most reassuring of all was the feeling that, while quite helpless myself, I was in the hands of an ir.finitely-benign Power which cared for me and would protect me from all that was ill ; a Power whose attributes were goodness and mercy. Into this complete assurance the faith I had been taught seemed perfectly to fit, without prejudice to other faiths than mine. The whole scheme of life on this earth, death and the certain life to come seemed to have meaning and purpose, to he harmonious, natural, and, above all, beneficent. Finally the long operation was over and I still survived. I was lifted from the table and carried back to my room, to begin the long and painful struggle back to health, during which, even in the moments hardest to bear, there came no fear of death, for my experience had robbed it of all its terrors.