QUESTIONS
There are lots of questions I have been asked.  In all honesty, I don't have all of the answers.  There are some questions I am not suppose to answer.  I will not break my trust! My word has always been important to me and I do my best to keep it.  For those remaining and there are many,  I will attempt to give a very good answer.   Just saying yes or no of course would  not be fair to people who really do want to know.  Lot of the questions go well beyond a simple answer and may take more intensity to answer.  The questions will not appear chronologically but rather random because some are just easier for me to deal with.  Remember that this was a very personal experience which causes some embarassment to talk about, but to keep my word I will do my very best to answer the ones that I can! Some answers will be shorter because they may answer many questions if I extend them.  Each answer needs its own independant thought without infringing on another question
 
Q  Did you really die?
Yes, dead as a doornail.  I did not COOL OFF but was still a warm body.  Several of the professionals who performed the surgery I spoke with, said that it took all of their skill and they lost me 3 times. I am a card carrying walking dead man. 
Q  What was it like being dead?
That is answered in my recant.  To really answer that in just this small space is impossible.  It requires the full story and the events which occured during the dead time.  To summarize being dead, I can say that it was a mixture of anxiety, heart wrentching sadness, and overflowing joy and love.  After the initial impact of discovering I was dead and the events which followed, death was wonderful. 
Q  When you were dead, did you want to stay?
Yes I did.  I actually pleaded to stay.  I cried, begged, pleaded, humbled myself in an attempt to stay.  I have upset members of my family with this answer.  Deep down I think they undestand.  It is not that I wanted to be separated from them, The glory of where I was caused a desire to remain.
Q  Are you afraid of dying?
NO, I have no fear of death.  Been there,done that.  I have the hat, T-shirt, and the scars.  There is no reason to fear death if you have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ.  If you haven't then you should be afraid, very very afraid!
I must point out that the particular path to arrive at death does concern me.  Remember that my  death was  particularly unpleasant and downright excrutiatingly painful.  I was in distress, intense pain, saw the fear and anxiety on everyones faces around me.  I am not into pain and I would hope that my next death is a pleasant one.  Perhaps a Pleasant day and just falling asleep to hear my lords voice calling me.  Just a gentle sweet "slipping away.  I would like that! Yes, getting hit by a mac truck is not something I would welcome.
Q  Before you died, were you a religeous person
Well, This one requires a little more explaining.  The word "religeon" does not necessarily have anything to do with belief.  The dictionary's universal definition of the word is:
"An objective pursued  with zeal or conscientious devotion."
Other definitions do say a believe in a supreme super power which rules the universe. This is a trick question since Religion is not "singular".  When you ask that question I cannot say no since I have pursued many objectives religeously which have nothing to do with any particular secular belief.  What the correct question should be is, "before this happened to you, did you believe in (a) God?"
To this I must answer, Yes, I did believe in the one true God the father creator and his only son Jesus Christ of nazarath.  I have a background of  southern baptist and christian churches.  At one time I attended church religeously (theres that word again) but I didn't often enjoy it.  Let's be honest.  I had to get up and go to church when I could have been sleeping in, watching cartoons, or out playing.  Instead I had to spend the time going to church.  Sometimes I did enjoy it, going to sunday school and church was also a social event where I saw a lot of friends.  As I grew older, I did not attend church as often for a myriad of reasons.  Usually I was working.   Sometimes I just simply didn't go because I promised myself the opportunity to choose when I got older.  I still make these choices, however now I do attend a church more often.  Not always the same one.   God is God. God doesn't need a building to be found.  God needs an open heart and an opportunity!   Opportunities are everywhere and so is God.
Religeous, No!  Having faith and belief, YES!   Active religeous church attender, No.  
Q.  Did you see the light at the end of the tunnel
No, not at first.  There was no tunnel.  Not for me.  My mother and others who have died or have had near death experiences have spoken of this tunnel with the light and warmth at the end of it, beckoning them to "come on down" but that wasn't my experience.  When I was first aware of anything during my death, it was the absence of everything! There was absolute blackness, absolute silence.   There was no up or down, in or out, no hot,cold,wind,pain, NOTHING,NOBODY, just me in nothingness!  I could have been anywhere, a room, a cavern in the earth, a deprivation tank, a large or tiny space.  Nothing to touch.  Have you ever really thought about "nothingness"?  I guess black is something should you want to get technical.  The absence of light is something. But really now, when I first was aware of anything there was absolutly nothingness, period!  Concerning the light, I will get to that in another answer.
Q.  Was there anything at all you saw?
Yes there was quite a bit that I saw and experienced.  It is covered in the recant of the adventure.  The scope is too large to answer in this one question.  At first, when I was dead there was nothing but the absolute dark.   Things picked up from there.  I do not know how long I was in the darkness before John appeared to me.
Q.  Did you see a light or a garden or anything at all like other people who have died have described?
Yes ! Absolutely!   While in the nothingness, I suddenly sensed a presence next to me, another person standing on my right.  I could clearly see this man.  He had suddenly appeared and the light which shown around him was very very brite.   In his right arm he held a large  square white laptop computer.  It could have been a book but I perceived it as a laptop computer.  Actually, it was very large, too large for the laptops that I am familiar with or have ever seen.  Nonetheless, it was a large white square thing and  this man was holding it  in his right arm away from me.   Unlike other tales I have heard,  I did not walk or travel anywhere when he suddenly appeared to me standing on my right.  More on the rest later. 
Q.  When you died, did you know where you were?
No I didn't.   I knew that my life had ended, but at the time I wasn't quite accepting that fact.  I reached out with my feelings but could not sense anything.  I did not know if I was in heaven or hell or just stuck in some black place.  I had absolutely no concept of where I was, where I might be going, or the time I spent there.
Q.  Who was the man.  Did he tell you what the laptop computer was?
That is two questions with many answers.   The man introduced himself to me.  He said his name was John.   Before he had appeared, I truly was beginning to fill myself with many fears.  I looked into his face, it was filled wth a compassion and love that made me feel good and safe.  Many of my fears still existed, but as long as John was there with me they did not matter.   For an unknown reason at that time, he soothed my distress.
  What was the computer?  Well, I have told very few about this so far, but those who have listened believe that it was the book of life.  I cannot confirm or deny this.  I do know, and sensed at that time,  it is very very important.   I tried to look at it more closely because I was drawn to it as much as I was to John.   He would not let me see it no matter how hard I tried.  He would turn his body away from me such that I was able to see he had this very large laptop computer, but he would not let me look into it.   I asked to see it but John told me "NO, it is not yet your time to see it"  I did want to see it.  I really tried, but I did not assert myself and accepted the answer I had been told.  I feel in my heart that the time is coming when I will be allowed to look into it.   Those last words were not spoken to me,  but felt.
Q.  If you saw John again, would you recognize him?
Without any doubt John is known to me.  I looked right into his face and I could see him clearly.  If he were to walk up to me at anytime I would know him. 
Q.  Did you have an out-of-body experience.  Did you float up from where you were and look down on yourself and the room where your body was.
I had the ultimate out of body experience people,  but it did not happen in the manner I have heard or read from other peoples related stories.  I did not look down and  see myself lying on the operating table or the people working feverishly around my body. There was no floating, no ethereal lifting up where I felt my spirit and body separate.   I did know with absolute certainty that I was no longer in my physical shell, and I thought of it in just that manner.   Yes, I was out of body and transported to another place.   I did not look back.   I could not look back since I was no longer in the same room.  My body was now an empty shell and My consciousness had left the building.  As I have said I was suddenly in black nothingness.  There was only me and the void.
Q. Were you afraid?
I believe fear is an emotion that we have learned and grows when supplied with fetile ground and imagination.  However, I was truly living an event out of the ordinary.  When I first arrived in the blackness I had more of a curiosity and a sense of exploration.  But as the time I spent alone in this place passed, my imagination turned to my learned fears of the dark.  I grew fear from anticipation of what could be hiding in the dark.   Horrible beasts and nasty whatevers that were sulking around, biding their time waiting to "get me".  There were mixed feelings but I did have a fertile imagination that ran rampant with more than just fear.  I also had hope and faith.  I would like to say I had courage but courage against what?  Courage against blackness, emptyness, silences?   I do hope that you can understand that a time came when I was having some tremendous emotional swings and that fear hope, and courage were just part of them.  There was no time however, that I was overwhelmed  by any one of  them, individually or collectively, and lost control of myself.   I did not swing from laughing out loud to huddled antangonistic fear.    Really, there was no time that I feared for my "life".  I actually did wonder if there was anything  that existed in this place that could hurt or help me.  I had thought it would be nice if I had a flashlite.    
Q. You said you "did" have a faith in God  before this, has this changed?  It sounds like you did and now you don't.
It does sound confusing I suppose, but that is because I now have a completly new and unique perspective. This experience has positioned me to a new viewpoint.  I have always had a faith because that is all that was available to me.  That is all what most of us have ever had to go on.  Now it is different for me, because of my death and the things I did and experienced during that time, I no longer have to relie on faith.  I have been given strength from the power of knowing.   There is a great satisfaction which accompanies this new feeling.  It is like waking up in the morning to a beautiful blue sky knowing that the day is perfect.  I can also compared this to the moment Archimedes exclaimed, "eureka!"  KNOWLEDGE!
Q. Did you meet or talk to other people while you were there?
Yes and no. When we are dead we are no longer people in the sense of the word describing people.  You must understand that is an earthly concept and really has no bearing on describing people as I saw them.  I did talk to others, but the time I spoke with them was very limited. At least it seemed limited.  There is a look, feel, familiarity, and knowledge of who the person is, but we are changed.  We are familiar but in new bodies.  The same but completly different.
Q.  You mentioned time.  How much time did you spend there?
That is a very good question that I would like to know.   The very first person to ask me that was Pastor Martin Lee.  Admittedly, it took me back because time was never an issue or even a thought that came to mind before or after, until he asked. How can I answer a question that just simply has no meaning? The only time frames I was remotely aware of was the beginning and the end.  The time when I first gained conciousness in the black nothing void, and the time when I was required to leave and bring back the message.   The measure of time was not important.   I did, went, saw, experienced many many things.   It could have happened in an instant or may have taken years.   Moments, hours,months,millennia,days, time does and did not matter while dead.   What is a pertinent measurement is that there was enough "time" for me to experience those things.  I would have to assume, that there is no time to measure in death as we understand it,  secondly, that all time joins in a confluent unity, or that it just simply does not exist there!
Q.  Another time question.  How long were you dead on the operating table?
That is an answer that I have had to relie on other people to answer.  My care givers were very hesitant about answering that, but a few of them came thru with some answers for me.  I think that no one really wants to face losing a patient when it happens, so no one really wanted to talk about it.  They are in the career of saving lives and ending physical suffering.
  But to continue, I understand that I died three distinct times, each time of death lasting longer than the first.   The whole operation was a struggle for everyone, and I have not been told if these deaths happened in rapid fire succession or if they were spaced apart with varying time frames.   I have been told that when I died the first time, when all measurable life activities ceased, the time was about 12 minutes.   The second time lasted about 17 minutes.  The third time was something over 22 minutes.  I was also informed that it was this last time  that the team felt that was it, I'm done, and the doctors were preparing to tell my wife and the famiy the "bad news".    The total time of death extended over 40 minutes, but not all congruently.   More than one of the doctors told me that they just didn't know what to tell the family.   No heartbeat, no breathing, no brain activity, and no hope.  DEAD!
Q.  Were you aware of anything while the operation was going on?
Yes I was aware of a few things.   I was quite aware of being placed on my side and being "strapped" down.  My right side down with my left up and my left arm held over my head. My right arm was tucked close to my chest.  I had glimpses of people all around me dressed in blue or green aprons and lights overhead being focused on me. It was an odd thought, the color that is, because I had always imagined that surgical masks were white.  It is not a pleasant memory but at this point I was no longer caring much about anything.  I also remember something on my face, feeling hands inside of me, sounds that remiended me of the suction sounds that you hear in the dentists chair.  You know the juicey vacuum tube they now use instead of saying "spit"!  I also recall one statement, "What a mess!"  I don't recall however if it was a male or female voice.
  Later, while at an appointment with the surgeon, he did ask me if I remembered anything at all.  I told him yes, I remembered the statement, "what a mess" but did not tell the rest.   He did not seem surprised but did answer, "yes, yes it was!"  He also told me that it was a question that he would ask patients.  I don't know if he asks it all the time, and he did not tell me if patients do or do not remember events during surgery.  If I see him again I hope I remember to ask that.  I am curious if others have memories of and during their surgeries.
  Another doctor that I spoke with said it was unusual and recall just didn't happen often, that people had no recollection at all.   They mostly just "sleep" thru it and woke up afterwards without memories of the actual operation.   I think that not having memories would be more pleasant.  Afterall, a surgery with tubes, not breathing,cutting, is not a very pleasant thought.   I get the willies just thinking about people who choose elective cosmetic surgery for their personal vanity.  Why would anyone want to subect themselves to unnecessary procedures?
Q.  So you did see a light after all?
Yes I did.  I have not hesitated to answer that question whenever I have been asked.  What has made me hesitate a few moments was how to answer regarding he lights appearance and the light itself.  Some questioners have asked me if perhaps the light I saw was not actually the "light" but my dim recollection of the bright surgical lights.  My answer remains, "YES, I saw "THE LIGHT"! 
  Again I have had to think of how to answer this well by sorting out the sequence of events to affirm that I was not traumatized into mistaking this for something else, the lights during surgery as suggested.  I was vaguely aware of the surgery at the time as I have already stated.  I remember them as the green blue garbed people  hustling all around me.  Those lights are brite.  They have to be.  You just don't want to go poking around inside somebody in the dark, nor would I want my "operators"  to make calculated guesses with sharp scalpals!   Think of the dire consequences of a dimly lit operating theater.   You  go in for surgery, say, a vasectomy.  You wake up and the doctors asks, "Say Mr. Everdell, have you ever considered how stunning you'd look in a dress"?  Those parts are pretty close together and I just wouldn't want the surgeon flying blind. 
  The light in the darkness was far beyond any light I've seen on or from earth.   It was greater than a blazing sun in your face.   It was so brite, beautiful,alive, powerful,relentlessly intense that I could not face it.  I had to turn away.   Even then, the light penetrated and shown thru me.  No matter which way I turned, where I looked, the majestic power of it's brilliance could not be shielded from , ignored, and truthfully not be seen.  Without looking at the light I continued to see it and the light saw thru me.
   Did I see the light?  I could not help but see it!      
Q.  What, you said the light was "ALIVE"?
Yes, I did use the word alive.  When the presence occured it was instantaneous.   BOOM!  There it was with no hint that its appearance was about to occur. I was transformed from the juxtaposition of absolute black to absolute light. I did not have time to preform any opions so those initial words I used to describe it  were my senses that formed at that moment.  My intuition as it happened.   As I found out it is  life, it is light.
Q. When we have asked you questions, you sometimes get this far away look in your eyes and take quite a measure of time , sometimes quite a bit of time before you answer the question.  Why do you do this?
I am aware of this and you do deserve to know.  The questions are difficult to answer.  You see,  Life and Death are opposites, and at the same time similar and the same, yet entirely different.  Do you understand that idea?  If you do you are way ahead of me!   The questions asked of me require that I somehow talk about and or explain things and actions that have absolutely no basis with which to compare.  Nothing that I am familiar with in life.   The best that I can do is to find similar terms of something close that we are all somewhat familiar with.  I am searching for something in common.  Just as badly as you desire to know, I want, no, I hunger to give you the very best answer I can.
   Describing  these things is extremely difficult just for the fact that there is very little they have in common with anything!
    Suppose a person from year one is transported to this current year 2000.  They appeared in anytown usa.  Wouldn't you know that the things they would see walking down anystreet would be beyond anything experienced in their life. How would they react to common things and events we take for granted.  What would they think of us with magic miniature sundials on our wrists?(yes, I know sundials weren't invent yet)  Walking by a department store wouldn't they be baffled by the magic of paintings and drawings that moved and talked? How about cellphones?  Then just as suddenly they were sent back to year one and had the very difficult task of describing what they had seen and experienced.
     How would they described an auto for example.  What relevant things could they compare it with  so their compatriats would understand?  A hungry chariot belching  fire and brimstone, eats people and runs swifter than the fastest horses? Does this really describe a car and is it enough to fill the desire to know?  How about an airplane or a microwave oven?  It really gets difficult when we get into the digital world and space travel.  You must know that people want to know more.  They want to hear about the details so they too can understand and have a piece of the experience too.   The curiosity is a hunger and people want to know!
      I have to really think hard on how to intrepret those things I did and saw into something familiar to all of us.  Yes, not everything is unfamiliar, different, or entirely strange to me, but if it were I could not comprehend on how to make sense of it for any of us.  My translation would be worthless if I could not make comparisons with the familiar.
    Those things were seen thru new eyes, like the wonderous eyes of a newborn baby!  Everything is new!  
Q. Has this experienced changed you?
My question back to you is, "How could anyone go thru what I lived (died and lived) and not have some changes"?   I am still me and who I am, but what I feel, How I view things is a combination of old and new.   I have stated that I have the strength and power of knowing.   There is no guessing about the answer of God,eternity, heaven, and hell.  I still have my daily struggles, but I am more aware of them when they happen.  Sure, things are missed.  Of course I make mistakes.   Sure, I could be better than I am but forgive me.  I was sent back as I am.  I am only human despite this life after death event.   Not one of us is perfect after any life altering event even though things are somehow different.  It might be an event of major or minor proportions, but no matter what its scope there is some change in any of us.
     I know people who have had terrible auto accidents and survived.   A man I met lived thru a similar experience to mine.  People who witnessed the accident attempted to reach him to render aide and assistance.   There was an angel blocking them from reaching him.  In full view of everyone this angel cared for him.  He should be dead but lived.   Is he changed?  Yes he is but still, he is a man who struggles every day just like us.  What about the people who saw this are they changed too?   You bet!   Everyday each one of us have an occurance that changes us, some more than others.   What is important is that we allow a positive change. 
     I see many things thru new eyes and a new vision.  I appreciate so many things so much more than I ever did before.  I notice little things that use to escape my attention.   I have a lot more thankfulness and appreciation  of others and for things they do.
     On the other hand I have a more intense dislike for the dark things people do. IN Particular I am most distressed by the tresspasses that we do to one another.   I ask God for forgiveness and strength to deal with this correctly.   Where small discrepancies would not necessarily cause me much thought, they now arouse my disgust on a greater level.   I also speak out where before I would stay silent.  It is because I see these things in myself!
    Yes, This has changed many facets of me, my family, my activities, my life!   I could sum this question up by saying "the total effect of this has been to cause me a greater awareness".    
This is all that I am going to fit on this page.  You may continue to more questions and answers with the link below.