A Child’s View of Death and My Own Near-Death Experience

Death is not the opposite of life but a part of it

When I was nine years old, I fell in hate with a nursery rhyme. Here’s how it went — “Sixty seconds make a minute….”

I was listening to this song at my cousins’ house in Pune, India. And I thought: What’s happening to Ajoba (grandfather)?

Ajoba, my maternal grandfather, lived with us. He didn’t talk much. But when we told him about school and friends, he listened.

And then, one day, he got sick.

Dad took him to the hospital. Mom packed us off to our uncle’s house nearby to be with our cousins.

My cousins had a record player and an LP record of nursery rhymes. One of the songs — which they loved and played over and over again — was “Sixty Seconds….”

It was playing when my dad came to pick us up three days later.

Dad was different this time. He didn’t joke around with my cousins. He tried to smile but couldn’t. Unease wriggled in my stomach.

“What happened to Ajoba?” I blurted out.

Dad’s eyes slid away. “He went to Heaven.”

“To Heaven?” I knew what the term meant — even if I couldn’t fully grasp it. “But why?”

“Because God wanted him to come.”

I began protesting as soon as I got into the car. It wasn’t fair. There were so many things I needed to share with Ajoba. How could God come to our house — just like that — and take him away?

Dad didn’t answer. Instead, he peppered us with questions.

Had we read lots of books? Did we play in the park? Did we play with our cousins’ dog?

Seven-year-old Ash answered his questions. I sulked.

When we reached home, the low-slung cloth chair in the living room was empty. It was where Ajoba usually sat, his cup of tea on a stool next to him.

Mom’s face looked crumply. Her mouth shook when she looked at us. She didn’t talk about Ajoba.

I didn’t ask about him.

“Let my name be… spoken without the ghost of a shadow upon it.” — Henry Scott-Holland.

After my grandfather passed, there was always a ghost of a shadow on his name.

My parents spoke to other adults about Ajoba. How he, a twenty-something widower, had never re-married because he was afraid a new wife might mistreat his four-year-old daughter. And how he had treated my father — who was chalk to his cheese — with a scolding, yet deep, affection.

Around us, my parents exchanged glances. They whispered. But they did not speak openly about a family member, whose presence was now conspicuous by his absence.

I had known Ajoba my whole life. I saw him every day, related to him all that happened to me, and sat at the table with him for meals. His possessions were everywhere in the house.

And yet, I was to go on as if I had never known him. As if he had never existed. It was disorienting.

I heard Dad speaking to my uncle about the hospital where my grandfather had died. I never forgot the name.

I have relatives in Pune, India, where I lived as a child. In the heart of the city is the hospital where my grandfather drew his last breath. Every time I pass by the building, a wave of irrational anger rises in me. This is the hospital that swallowed up Ajoba.

As for “Sixty seconds…” — it still has the power to turn my stomach.

In the last two decades, I’ve lost both of my parents and several close relatives. I’ve wept; I’ve felt lonely. But I’ve never felt as lost and sick to my stomach as I did when I could not grieve for Ajoba.

Do you believe in Near-Death-Experiences?

“Because I could not stop for Death, He kindly stopped for me.” — Emily Dickinson

When I first read those lines by Emily Dickinson, what stood out for me was the word “kindly.” It was not an adjective I associated with death.

There was nothing kind about a child dying. Or someone cut down in the prime of their lives. Or the trauma of losing a beloved friend or spouse.

But then I saw death come as a friend to a relative suffering from a terminal illness.

And once when I briefly rubbed shoulders with Death, I found Him to be a kindly and charismatic companion —

Immediately following the birth of my first child, I developed serious postpartum complications. For four hours, I hung between this life and the next.

During that period, the doctor and nurses were doing their thing, and I was doing mine.

I was walking along a dimly-lit, grey-walled tunnel. With every step that I took, my cares and worries sloughed off. I felt light and happy. Then, at the end of the tunnel, I saw a dazzling white radiance — and my heart grew full to bursting.

I knew that if I reached the light, I would be in a place of unimaginable joy. I broke into a run. The light was far away, but if I ran long enough, I could get there.

And then — shockingly — something cut me off.

I opened my eyes and heard the doctor say, “She’s back.”

I felt a stab of regret. Why did I come back? It was so peaceful in there.

But then they brought my infant daughter into the room. I felt her sweet weight in my arms. My mother’s hand on my hair. And I knew at least two reasons why I came back.

Are Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) for real?

Scientists explain Near-Death Experiences as a result of neurochemicals flooding the brain in times of trauma, oxygen shortage, or imperfect anesthesia.

I am prepared to be skeptical about the phenomenon.

But whether it was neurochemicals or something less tangible, the experience served one beneficial purpose. It took away my fear of death.

Thou Art in Heaven…

My daughter is now a young woman with children of her own. The other day, my five-year-old granddaughter asked me if everyone had to die.

I said, “Yes.”

“But why do they have to die?”

“To make place for new babies,” I said. “Otherwise, the earth will get too crowded.

“Will you die?”

“Yes.”

“Will I go to Heaven after I die?” she asked.

“Pretty sure you will.”

“Will I see you there?”

“Ummm…”

“Will you do Art with me in Heaven like you do here?”

“I don’t see why not.”

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust…

I want my granddaughter to understand that death is the natural order of things.

If she asks again, when she is a little older, I will tell her that all forms of matter and energy are created, then preserved for a period of time, and ultimately transmute into other forms of matter or energy.

I will tell her that Death is a return to Nature. Ashes to ashes. And Nature breathes life into the ashes by enfolding them into a new being — whether plant or animal.

I am neither a philosopher nor a scientist. My understanding of death is homespun at best. But my head and heart both favor the idea of Life and Death as a cycle.

My head argues that the explanation is neat and logical. My heart takes comfort in the idea that death is not the end of the road. It takes away the sting of finality.

As the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami put it, “Death is not the opposite of life but a part of it.”

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