Like Blaise Pascal, the 17th‑century French physicist, mathematician and philosopher, I have always believed that death is “the horror of nature”. If I had to introduce myself in a single sentence, I would choose the words of the Bulgarian Nobel laureate Elias Canetti: “I am an enemy of death”. Perhaps because I have lost many of my dearest ones, perhaps because I find the extinction of beauty, goodness and truth unacceptable.
When I was eight years old, my father, the writer Rafael Narbona Fernández de Cueto, died suddenly of an acute myocardial infarction. Later, there were other losses no less painful: my brothers, my mother, some of my closest friends. My own death does not trouble me as much as the separation from the people I love. Or from those dogs and cats that have accompanied me for so many years, providing affection, companionship, loyalty and joy
What is there after death?
The best antidote against death is hope. Skepticism has won the battle against hope, at least in secular Europe, but the various religious traditions still captivate millions of people.
Their accounts should not be read as evidence or facts, but as metaphors and symbols. Hope is not a dogma, but an expectation of connection with something larger than the immediate and ephemeral.
From animism, the Orphic rites and Platonic philosophy, it is speculated that nature is only the veil of a reality inaccessible to the senses. The study of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) has brought back into circulation the idea that consciousness does not end with death. Many neurologists attribute these experiences, which include out-of-body visions, or communication with deceased loved ones, to the brain’s oxygen deprivation during a state of collapse. They say they are merely hallucinations.
My near-death experience
However, doctors such as the digestive surgeon Manuel Sans Segarra, the cardiologist Pim van Lommel and the anaesthetist and resuscitation expert Luján Comas, argue that this hypothesis is not consistent, as hallucinations are always subjective, disturbing and disordered, and NDEs are characterised by objectivity, clarity and a sense of peace.
The priest and writer Pablo d’Ors compares these experiences with mystical experiences. They are windows opened to an unknown dimension, where harmony, fullness and balance would reign. “Near-death experiences –writes d’Ors in his work Devotion–, are increasingly studied scientifically, and are demonstrating that consciousness persists after brain death.”
On 6 January 2006 I suffered a NDE. While a mobile ICU was transporting me to the Hospital de la Paz, my heart stopped beating and I felt that my consciousness (or, more precisely, my spiritualised or transformed body) detached itself from my physical body and observed me from the ceiling of the ambulance.
The experience lasted only a few moments, but I recall with clarity my anonymous face, the pyjamas I wore, the medical equipment and the healthcare professionals who were trying to resuscitate me. After that experience, I have not lost my fear of death, but I would venture to say that the interruption of bodily functions does not represent an end, but a transit, a transformation, a change.
Death, a source of renewal
I understand that my hypothesis clashes with the scientific mindset, which only attributes credibility to what can be touched, measured and quantified. I do not scorn science, but as Viktor Frankl did, I believe it does not answer the fundamental questions. Although it helps us solve problems, it has never been able to explain the meaning of life.
Let us accept for a moment that death entails an irreversible end. How should one face it in that case? I think of it as a source of renewal. If new generations did not arise, life would lose its character as a unique, unrepeatable miracle.
In an infinite time, there would be no real novelties, only sterile repetitions. Death is the necessary tribute that life demands in order to preserve its power to innovate. Moreover, no one dies completely while still occupying a place in the memory of their loved ones.
Be that as it may, there is no universal formula for facing death. Each person must forge their own path. Any alternative is valid, except despair. I feel close to Miguel de Unamuno: “With reason, without reason or against it, I do not feel like dying. And when I finally die, if it is total, I will not have died, that is, I shall not have let myself die, but fate will have killed me.”
