Teresa - The Gift of the Cross
09 06
This is the story of my friend Teresa Ann Oronato's near-death experience, according to memory. She passed away from this world as we know it or "crossed over" twice, the first time for about fifteen minutes and finally into eternity with all of its wonder and rapture just two and a half days later.
Terry made her final transition on July 11, 2001 at the age of fifty years. She was just one week short of approaching her tenth wedding anniversary with her husband Timmy. Before that she had been married to a wife batterer who had broken, the doctors said, every bone in her body, causing her to suffer many irreparable injuries that indirectly contributed to the cause of her dying so young.
The Sunday before her death, she was taken by ambulance to the hospital emergency room where the doctors would work feverishly to save her life from congestive heart failure. As they labored over her inert body lying motionless on the operating table, she suddenly caught sight of herself floating upwards and out of that beleaguered and besieged vehicle of transport on earth, meaning of course her body. As she drifted up to the ceiling, she remembered looking down and seeing the medical team working frantically on her body only she wasn't in it anymore. Similarly, she felt a strange sensation of quietude and peace. All earthly connections of temporal being were broken as she saw an immense ocean of whiteness like the ocean of God, she later reminisced. As she was experiencing this remarkably indescribable feeling of calm, a masculine voice gently spoke to her, asking her if she wanted to stay. While she hesitated, thinking all the while that she would indeed like to stay suspended, as it were, in this wondrous bliss, this same masculine voice which had spoken to her before made the pronouncement, "You must go back. There is more work for you."
At that moment she came to consciousness of her body as the physicians and nurses and technicians were removing their gloves and masks. "I can't believe what I just dreamed," she marveled. Two days later during the night or wee hours of the morning of July 11, she slipped the surly bonds of earth in a final seizure freeing her without knowing.
My heart leapt for joy when I heard the news. Though her family was heartbroken, I was jubilant because my dear brave friend had made it to the other side which I knew for her would be absolutely radiant. I myself felt this mysterious unfathomable radiance and sense of light all that very day, and I have no doubt it was her presence ethereally to which I responded with tears and prayers of joy.
P. S. I have tried repeatedly to decide what this "work" consisted of, of which the omniscient voice spoke. Actually, she and I both wondered about this unknown directive. Here is what another friend and I decided after Terry died. We thought that it involved the tiny rose gold crucifix that she loved so much. Timmy, her beloved husband, had given it to her four years previously. It had been lost at the hospital on that last emergency visit. She lamented to me that it must have been stolen. Thinking that it was gone for good, was Terry ever surprised when Timmy came home the next day with the cherished cross. She was so thrilled that she called me immediately and we shared in her happiness. I never spoke to her again, but it seems to me that the gift of the cross was given to her twice by her husband, and that she returned to earth to receive it a second time.
P. P. S. Terry's passing finally convinced me once and for all that there is absolutely nothing to fear!
Terry made her final transition on July 11, 2001 at the age of fifty years. She was just one week short of approaching her tenth wedding anniversary with her husband Timmy. Before that she had been married to a wife batterer who had broken, the doctors said, every bone in her body, causing her to suffer many irreparable injuries that indirectly contributed to the cause of her dying so young.
The Sunday before her death, she was taken by ambulance to the hospital emergency room where the doctors would work feverishly to save her life from congestive heart failure. As they labored over her inert body lying motionless on the operating table, she suddenly caught sight of herself floating upwards and out of that beleaguered and besieged vehicle of transport on earth, meaning of course her body. As she drifted up to the ceiling, she remembered looking down and seeing the medical team working frantically on her body only she wasn't in it anymore. Similarly, she felt a strange sensation of quietude and peace. All earthly connections of temporal being were broken as she saw an immense ocean of whiteness like the ocean of God, she later reminisced. As she was experiencing this remarkably indescribable feeling of calm, a masculine voice gently spoke to her, asking her if she wanted to stay. While she hesitated, thinking all the while that she would indeed like to stay suspended, as it were, in this wondrous bliss, this same masculine voice which had spoken to her before made the pronouncement, "You must go back. There is more work for you."
At that moment she came to consciousness of her body as the physicians and nurses and technicians were removing their gloves and masks. "I can't believe what I just dreamed," she marveled. Two days later during the night or wee hours of the morning of July 11, she slipped the surly bonds of earth in a final seizure freeing her without knowing.
My heart leapt for joy when I heard the news. Though her family was heartbroken, I was jubilant because my dear brave friend had made it to the other side which I knew for her would be absolutely radiant. I myself felt this mysterious unfathomable radiance and sense of light all that very day, and I have no doubt it was her presence ethereally to which I responded with tears and prayers of joy.
P. S. I have tried repeatedly to decide what this "work" consisted of, of which the omniscient voice spoke. Actually, she and I both wondered about this unknown directive. Here is what another friend and I decided after Terry died. We thought that it involved the tiny rose gold crucifix that she loved so much. Timmy, her beloved husband, had given it to her four years previously. It had been lost at the hospital on that last emergency visit. She lamented to me that it must have been stolen. Thinking that it was gone for good, was Terry ever surprised when Timmy came home the next day with the cherished cross. She was so thrilled that she called me immediately and we shared in her happiness. I never spoke to her again, but it seems to me that the gift of the cross was given to her twice by her husband, and that she returned to earth to receive it a second time.
P. P. S. Terry's passing finally convinced me once and for all that there is absolutely nothing to fear!
