27.

Homecoming

I came home on November 25, 2008, two days before Thanksgiving, to a

home full of gratitude. Eben IV drove overnight to surprise me the
following morning. The last time he’d been with me I’d been in full
coma, and he was still processing the fact that I was alive at all. He was
so excited that he got a speeding ticket coming through Nelson County
just north of Lynchburg.
I’d been up for hours, sitting in my easy chair by the fire in our cozy
wood-paneled study, just thinking about everything I’d been through.
Eben walked through the door just after 6 A.M. I stood up and gave him a
long hug. He was stunned. The last time he’d seen me on Skype in the
hospital, I’d been barely able to form a sentence. Now—other than still
being on the thin side and having an IV line in my arm—I had returned to
my favorite role in life—being Eben and Bond’s dad.
Well, almost the same. Eben was aware of something else that was
different about me, too. Later, Eben would say that when he first saw me
that day, he was immediately taken with how “present” I was.
“You were so clear, so focused,” he said. “It was as if there was a kind
of light shining within you.”
I wasted no time in sharing my thoughts.
“I am so eager to read all I can about this,” I told him. “It was all so
real, Eben, almost too real to be real, if that makes any sense. I want to
write about it for other neuroscientists. And I want to read up on NDEs
and what other people have experienced. I can’t believe I never took any
of it seriously, never listened to what my own patients told me. I was
never curious enough to even look into any of the literature.”
Eben didn’t say anything, at first, but it was clear he was thinking
about how to best advise his dad. He sat down across from me, and he
urged me to see what should have been obvious.