Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife

27. Homecoming

I came home on November 25, 2008, two days before Thanksgiving, to a home full of gratitude. Eben IV drove overnight to surprise me the following morning. The last time he’d been with me I’d been in full coma, and he was still processing the fact that I was alive at all. He was so excited that he got a speeding ticket coming through Nelson County just north of Lynchburg.

I’d been up for hours, sitting in my easy chair by the fire in our cozy wood-paneled study, just thinking about everything I’d been through. Eben walked through the door just after 6 A.M. I stood up and gave him a long hug. He was stunned. The last time he’d seen me on Skype in the hospital, I’d been barely able to form a sentence. Now—other than still being on the thin side and having an IV line in my arm—I had returned to my favorite role in life—being Eben and Bond’s dad.

Well, almost the same. Eben was aware of something else that was different about me, too. Later, Eben would say that when he first saw me that day, he was immediately taken with how “present” I was.

“You were so clear, so focused,” he said. “It was as if there was a kind of light shining within you.”

I wasted no time in sharing my thoughts.

“I am so eager to read all I can about this,” I told him. “It was all so real, Eben, almost too real to be real, if that makes any sense. I want to write about it for other neuroscientists. And I want to read up on NDEs and what other people have experienced. I can’t believe I never took any of it seriously, never listened to what my own patients told me. I was never curious enough to even look into any of the literature.”

Eben didn’t say anything, at first, but it was clear he was thinking about how to best advise his dad. He sat down across from me, and he urged me to see what should have been obvious.

“I believe you, Dad,” he said. “But think about it. If you want this to be of value to others, the last thing you should do is read what other people have said.”

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“Write it down. Write it all down—all your memories, as accurately as you can remember them. But don’t read any books or articles about other peoples’ near-death experiences, or physics, or cosmology. Not until you’ve written down what happened to you. Don’t talk to Mom or anyone else about what happened while you were in coma, either—at least to the degree that you can steer clear of it. You can do that all you want later, right? Think how you always used to tell me that observation comes first, then interpretation. If you want what happened to you to be scientifically valuable, you need to record it as purely and accurately as you can before you start making any comparisons with what has happened to others.”

It was, perhaps, the most sage advice anyone’s ever given me—and I followed it. Eben was also quite right that what I deeply wanted, more than anything else, was to use my experiences to, hopefully, help others. The more my scientific mind returned, the more clearly I saw how radically what I’d learned in decades of schooling and medical practice conflicted with what I’d experienced, the more I understood that the mind and the personality (as some would call it, our soul or spirit) continue to exist beyond the body. I had to tell my story to the world.

For the next six weeks or so, most days went the same. I’d wake up around 2 or 2:30 A.M., feeling so ecstatic and energized by simply being alive that I would bound out of bed. I’d light a fire in the den, sit down in my old leather chair, and write. I tried to recall every detail of my journeys in and out of the Core, and what I had felt as I learned its many life-changing lessons.

Though tried isn’t really the right word. Crisp and clear, the memories were right there, right where I had left them.