Proof of Heaven

never talked about that shirt and fedora after they were lost. Christina
never heard one peep from us about them. Christina was so afraid of
dying, and now she knows she has nothing to fear, nothing at all.
What Susanna was telling me, I discovered in my reading, was a
variety of dream confirmation that happens quite often. But I hadn’t had
my NDE when I’d gotten that call, and at the time I knew perfectly well
that what Susanna was telling me was a grief-induced fantasy. Over the
course of my career, I had treated many patients who had undergone
unusual experiences while in coma or during surgery. Whenever one of
these people narrated an unusual experience like Susanna’s, I was always
completely sympathetic. And I was quite sure these experiences had
indeed happened—in their minds. The brain is the most sophisticated—
and temperamental—organ we possess. Tinker around with it, lessen the
degree of oxygen it gets by a few torr (a unit of pressure), and the owner
of that brain is going to experience an alteration in their reality. Or, more
precisely, their personal experience of reality. Throw in all the physical
trauma and all the medications that someone with a brain malady is likely
to be on, and you have a virtual guarantee that, should a patient have any
memories when they come back around, those memories are going to be
pretty unusual. With a brain affected by a deadly bacterial infection and
mind-altering medications, anything could happen. Anything, that is
—except the ultra-real experience I had in coma.
Susanna, I realized with the kind of jolt that comes when you see
something that should have been obvious, wasn’t calling to be comforted
by me that day. She really and truly was trying to comfort me. But I
hadn’t been able to see that. I’d thought I was doing Susanna a kindness
by pretending, in my wan, distracted way, to believe her story. But I
wasn’t. And looking back on that conversation and dozens of others like
it, I realized just what a long road I had in front of me if I was going to
convince my fellow doctors that what I’d been through was real.