MAE JULIAN
Continuing on with the story of Mr. Holder and his experience while in-between life and death:
I can remember, after hearing Mr. Holder’s story on what he experienced whilst I took care of him (prior to his getting the new heart), going to the Fort and talking to my brother about the whole incident. He told me that he thought he knew whom the heart came from. Now, if it weren’t enough that I had listened to the most incredible story of my life,‑in addition, I hear the “rest of the story”. My brother told me that the heart belonged to the son of childhood friend of his.‑His story went as such:
“We were at a lake, and we each had our kids with us. His son was about three years old, and walked out on the pier. I watched him walk right off the end of the pier. No one else noticed it. He didn’t go down three times, like you hear. He went down and didn’t come up.”‑ My brother was on his feet at a racer’s pace from the time he saw the child head for the end of the pier.‑He got to the child and grabbed him out of the water. The child was not breathing. My brother got him to shore and did some resuscitative movements on him. The child vomited,‑regained consciousness, and survived the ordeal. My brother lost track of his friend, in time, but he read that this particular child, now an adult, had been in a bad section of the Fort, when he was shot. He survived physically, but was declared brain dead a few days later.‑As my brother and I put together the time-line, we realized that a decision was made to donate the teen’s organs the evening I looked out the hospital window and asked for help from my father.
Mr. Holder’s story of what happened to him was thus:
“I was in some sort of in-between place. I seemed to know that I could move on into a light that was bright and welcoming. I wanted to go on towards the light, but an angel appeared and told me to wait. She was you. She told me that if I could hang on and stay with her, that I could return to my wife and children. I felt that things were being poked into me, and I was aware of pain, at times. The angel kept reassuring me that everything would be all right. I trusted her. There was a time that a man appeared to me.‑ His name was Bill. He said that he would stay with me, and he did. He felt like a good friend.”‑At this point, I was in a stunned state, because my father’s name was Bill. What Mr. Holder was telling me was just not possible. Mr. Holder continued to break down crying, wanting to hold me in his arms.‑I remember feeling embarrassed, as I was concerned as to what his wife must think. When I returned to my unit, I told one of my fellow nurses, also formerly from Fort Wayne, what had just happened. She said, “You know where that heart came from don’t you?”‑ I said, “No. I never heard, and never inquired.” She said, “It came from Fort Wayne. My mother sent me a picture of Dr. Giradet with the Igloo cooler containing the heart. He was getting on a private plane at BaerField, and a story accompanied it.”‑I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. All of it was overwhelming.‑ Somehow, I took part in an event that defies reason, as we know it.‑Could you even put odds on a thing like that?‑After Mr. Holder was discharged from our hospital, he would come back, weekly, to take part in meeting with a group of people called the “Mended Hearts Club.”‑ I would run into him now and then. I’m ashamed to say, that I also avoided him if I saw him first, because he would make such a fuss over me, and it made me feel awkward. Now, I wish I had taken a tape recorder in, and had him tell the whole story on tape.
I have thought of this incident many times in the years since. I have tried in every way to put a reasonable explanation on it.‑But I can’t.‑I don’t know how Mr. Holder told me the thoughts that were in my mind that night of life-or-death intensity, or about the man called Bill standing by him in what he called the “in-between”‑time.‑I can’t figure out how he knew all the things I was saying to him in my mind. All I know is that what happened confirmed, in my own mind, that there is much we do not know. It also confirmed to me that our souls continue after death and that there is a time when we can go on, or come back.‑And, more than that, there is at work some mystery that none of us understands. Maybe, for me, the most important part is that I know my dad is not dead. I know he is aware of me and of my life. He is also available for intervention in my life. I also know that there is no way to logically explain what happened in the CCU that evening.‑ But I am grateful to have been a part of it. There are things that cannot be measured in our concept of time and space. There is a far greater scope than any of us can imagine. Sometimes, when I think of the enormity of these things, I realize that the earthworm cannot contemplate the eagle. And it is thus with us.
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