The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times(56)

“Once, when he was a young medical resident, he spilled spaghetti sauce on his tie in the cafeteria of the hospital,” I said. “When he later went to attend to a young college student who had been brought to the hospital unconscious from a drug overdose, he didn’t have time to change his tie, so he buttoned up his white lab coat to cover up the stain. Remarkably, when the patient regained consciousness, she told him she had seen him in the cafeteria and she described the stain on his tie. Yet the whole time that he was in the cafeteria, she had been unconscious in her bed, watched by a sitter.

“After that he studied many people who had seen and learned things during near-death experiences that should not have been possible, like meeting relatives that they did not know they had. He said that after their experience they almost universally believed that death was not something to fear and that life continued in some form beyond the grave. It also transformed how they lived their lives because they believed there is meaning and purpose in the universe.”

I reminded Jane what she had just said jokingly, about life perhaps being a test, but that Greyson believed this could be true.

“He said that many of the people he’d talked to had experienced a sort of end-of-life review, where they literally saw their whole life flash before them,” I said, “and that this had helped them understand why certain things had happened. Often they saw conflict from the other person’s perspective or what caused people to act in the way they did. He talked about one truck driver, who had beaten up a drunken man who had cursed at him. When he had his near-death experience, he saw that the drunken man had recently lost his wife. Heartbroken, he had been driven to drink, which was why he had behaved in that abusive way.”

“It’s all absolutely fascinating, isn’t it?” Jane said, her eyes alight with curiosity, a naturalist eager to explore virtually uncharted territory. “But unfortunately this adventure will have to wait till I’m dead.

“However, I do have some sort of proof,” she added, “though it’s not proof in the scientific sense—it is just an experience that proves it to me, and I don’t care if anyone else believes it or not. It happened about three weeks after Derek died, when I was back in Gombe where Derek and Grub and I had had so much joy. I finally fell asleep listening to the waves and the crickets. Then I woke, or at least I thought I did, and I saw Derek standing there. He smiled and spoke to me for what seemed a long time. Then he disappeared and I felt I must quickly write down what he said, but even as I thought this, I felt a great roaring in my head as though I was fainting. I came out of this state, and once again I felt I must write down what I had learned, but once again the roaring, fainting feeling came over me. And when it stopped I could remember not one word that Derek had said. It was very strange. I was desperate to recall it because he told me all kinds of things that I knew I needed to know, I suppose, about what happened to him. But anyway, I was left with the peaceful feeling that he was in a wonderful place.”

She told me that she met one other person who had the same experience; and the woman had said to Jane, “Whatever you do, if it happens again, don’t try to get out of bed. When my husband came to me after his death, I, too, was desperate to write down what he said, and I got out of bed to get a pen. I had the same roaring sensation that you describe—and I was found in the morning in a coma.”

I asked Jane what she thought was going on. “I don’t know, but this woman told me that she believed that people who had died were on a different plane, and to hear them we entered that sphere. And that it takes time to return to Earth after such an experience.

“The strange thing is that after that experience I had with Derek, I had the strong feeling that if I really looked at the things Derek loved—the ocean, the storms, birds flying—and if I really felt them, then he would be able to share them, that somehow now he was in a different place—or ‘plane,’ as the woman said—he could only know things on Earth through a human’s eyes. It was a very intense time.”

Jane told me she did not usually talk about all of that—it was so strange, yet so real at the time.

“Jane, one last question. Why do you think it is that so many people say you give them hope?” I thought of my old college friend who had died by suicide and how many people were suffering and struggling with hopelessness.

“I honestly don’t know—I wish I did. Perhaps it’s because people realize that I am sincere. I unflinchingly lay out the grim facts—because people need to know. But then, when I lay out my reasons for hope, as I have in this book, they get the message and realize that there really could be something better if we get together in time. Once they realize that their life can make a difference, they have acquired a purpose. And, as we’ve said, having a purpose makes all the difference.”

“I suppose it’s time for us to close our conversation about hope and say goodbye—at least goodbye for now,” I said. “Thank you, Jane; this exploration of hope has been wonderful.”

“I always enjoy talking with you,” she said. “I like to have my brain challenged.”

“I’ve had my brain challenged, my heart opened, and my hope renewed,” I replied.

“One moment,” Jane said, taking the laptop over to the window. “There is one more being I want you to see, an old friend who’s been with me ever since I came to the Birches when I was five years old. There—can you see him?”