Fifteen Years
I have the unique distinction of having died on the very same day as River Phoenix. The deaths were unrelated, though both were drug induced. The young actor died on the sidewalk in front of the Viper Room in Los Angeles, his body convulsing as it gave up the fight between cocaine and heroin. I passed away on a rare snowy Halloween night on an ER table at the Lakeshore General in Montreal, my heart ceasing to beat just as a doctor was shoving a tube up my right nostril and trying to get it down my throat.
I was away from this world for four minutes before they shocked me back to life. River Phoenix has been gone 15 years. I always think of him on Halloween, and how our lives ended the same day. How he had so much to live for and made a stupid mistake; how I had nothing to live for but yet I was saved. There but for a few volts of electricity go I. Looking back over the years, I often wonder what greeted him on the far side that morning. I know what I saw, what I heard; it will have been different for him. It will be different for everyone of you who reads this.
River Phoenix was 23 years old; I was 17. Strange that I have passed the age of 23, all the way to 32 so far, and he never will. He will always be 23. He has been for fifteen years.
Look at it this way RG, you know more about dying ( or the good news - understanding about not dying ) than most people who read your blog.
The conundrum for you now is should you continue to keep the good news - (the inability of your “I AM” to die) to yourself any longer.
Comment by Joe Molnar — October 31, 2008 @ 12:00 pm
“how I had nothing to live for but yet I was saved.”
Maybe so you could blog and tell others. Maybe blind luck.
Happy Halloween
Comment by dinosaur — October 31, 2008 @ 12:21 pm
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Pingback by Webloggin » I Died 15 Years Ago Today — October 31, 2008 @ 1:16 pm
A former coworker “died” and saw her cocker spaniel. That sounds so corny to me but I believe her somehow. I don’t know what you saw but I can only guess. If the cocker spaniel theory is true, I better die with a pooper scooper in my hand, because I have had about a half a dozen pets waiting for me.
Comment by Ms. Aloha — October 31, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
Live is both fragile and beautiful.
Comment by mj — October 31, 2008 @ 8:55 pm
I felt a sense of warmth by what you said. Thank you.
Comment by Gina — October 31, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
P.s I have had an experience like in the movie Constantine…this gave me sudden stillness…and calm
Comment by Gina — October 31, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
Death can be ugly, and I’ve seen far too much of it. Yet I still do what I do…because somebody has to. But dying I haven’t done yet. At least not that I can remember.
Near death experiances I’ve had my share. From a motorcycle wreck to having a gun pointed at me and the trigger pulled, only to mis-fire. More recently I was hospitalized for a problem that my family doc (and friend)told me he thought, when he put me in the ambulance transfering me away, he’d never see me alive again. But here I am.
We’ve all got something to live for, even if it’s only for this.
Comment by Big Al — November 3, 2008 @ 11:55 am