In the spring

It was raining outside for days. Only rarely did the dense cloud cover let through a shameful beam of light around which the damp air seemed to steam. Through the window in his room he could still see some treetops lying down. He knew the trees should smell beguiling – the colorful flowers of spring and the vibrant thriving nature seemed to increase his pain even more. “Emergence and offense – there is always everything next to each other and at the same time,” he thought.
The pain that brought him his illness came in waves and spurts; then they left again for a while, leaving room for other feelings. In those moments, he usually stared at the picture on the cabinet next to his pillow. In his room, it was the only one that was a bit colorful except for the screen of the equipment that monitored his vital signs. The yellowed photo showed his wife and him at a young age, hand in hand and with a carefree laugh in the middle of a garden full of fruit trees – flowering in spring. He thought back to those days, those years when life was still before him, when he carelessly forgave his heart for everything that had touched him. 
“Where have these moments gone, where the joy, the pervasive lust for life? How could this all slip through my fingers? “He often wondered now with regret. “Did I never understand the meaning – why did not I try to understand?”
The tears slowly trickled down his face, wetting his pillow and the collar of his pajamas, which had become his only clothing. He knew that he did not have much time for that. The doctors said he did not have much time left. Never in his life had he been really afraid, at least he did not let the fear enter his heart, pushing it aside, into the unfathomed corners of his inner rooms. But now his fear paralyzed him and closed his throat. There was also a regret from the bottom of my heart, a regret that you had never faced the important, an idea that you had always postponed everything. Even if he did not know exactly what that could have been. “We all live the same life, in no way do we differ from each other. We are all bound together by the same fate of birth and death – and yet we imagine something. Do not fathom what that means. We do not want to face the unthinkable, we want lots of answers, but we never ask the right, the essential questions, “he kept telling himself when he closed his eyes after taking a long look at his picture. He then imagined that at that time he could have had the awareness that now came to him through the approaching death.
“I have – yes, what have I done? How could it happen that I am going to die alone in the hospital, how is it that I am now wondering what life and death mean, that I feel so unprepared? “, Thought through his mind. It seemed completely absurd and meaningless to him, wasting his lifetime. To buy a house and pay off debts, old-age provision, worries about the future, the costly illusion of security, the work that was not a vocation that he could only now look back on, superficial relationships and annoyance with other people. And anger, so much anger. Not so long ago, he had been trapped in these entanglements. With force he met knowledge. “An unlived life, empty and ignorant.”
He could no longer rest, he could not forgive himself. Now he was struck by the preciousness of a truly lived life – embedded in his fear and bitterness.
One morning, his pain overwhelmed him again. When they became unbearable, he usually pushed the button, called the nurse to get more analgesics. This time he did not do it. He wanted to fight. Fighting the pain, hoping to endure and conquer with the physical and the pain in his soul. Clenching his fist and gritting teeth, he stood the torment, tears clouding his eyes on the photo and the blossoms of the trees now shining in the morning sun. The sounds of life outside that filtered into the room through the crack of the tilted window became quieter. Silence until he could only hear his own shallow breath before finally falling asleep.
When he awoke, he felt great. Facilitated. “It was worth it; it’s worth struggling to endure the pain, “he said softly. He got up and felt the urge to go to the window and watch life – the life unfolding, like flocks of small insects busy nectar searching, fleeing swallows cascading through the steel-blue sky, like the most colorful flowers turn their flowers against the warming sun. He stood at the window and could not hold back his tears. He felt deep peace and bubbling joy amid the uneventful silence of his room.
“Weird …”, he thought. Only now did he notice the ease with which he had gotten up from his bed and walked to the window, getting away from the equipment. “Strange how little power costs me to stand”, he had not been able to do for a long time. As he watched the world lean against the wall, he wondered that his perception was different. As if he could see around the corners of the building, he knew what was happening there too. People who are anxious to visit their sick relatives and friends walked through the entrance, a mother with her pretty little daughter left the building, knowing that her husband, whom she loved very much, would recover. He felt exactly how people felt. In fact, he seemed to understand and know more than ever before in his life. Crystal clear knowledge spread before him, revealed to him alleged secrets. Urgently and irrevocably, he knew that all human beings were connected, that their souls were full of peace and eternal love, saw their truth behind their lives, felt what kept them from recognizing it. At the same time, he sensed how this living force behind the world of appearances was secretive and left nothing to chance. that their souls are full of peace and eternal love, saw their truth behind their living circumstances, felt what kept them from recognizing it themselves. At the same time, he sensed how this living force behind the world of appearances was secretive and left nothing to chance. that their souls are full of peace and eternal love, saw their truth behind their living circumstances, felt what kept them from recognizing it themselves. At the same time, he sensed how this living force behind the world of appearances was secretive and left nothing to chance.
His astonishment gave way to unshakable confidence, complete freedom from fear. At that moment, he heard very clearly that someone was approaching behind his back. He felt the presence very clearly and knew it was someone who loved him unconditionally. Slowly, nervously, he directed his gaze from the window to the center of his room. 
What he saw made him shudder. There was nobody in the room. 
Only now did he understand what had actually happened to him and how it was about him. The few steps to his bed were not steps, he did not move physically – for he saw his body lying in bed, breathless, with a face twisted with pain, his hands clenched in fists on his chest.
“I’m dead,” he breathed into his lifeless, frozen face. “My body is dead …” He was even surprised that at the moment of this realization he remained so calm – not only calm and collected, but relieved. He did not find the situation spectacular, not outrageous or disturbing. He felt that these impulses should have come from another source, from a source he was not communicating with at the moment. He felt that he was in his state in other dimensions of comprehension – in a wider dimension of reality. “I just woke up from a dream, I …”, he hesitated, because now even this little word `I` and the concept behind it seemed strange to him. “We sleep in life, we oversleep our time unless we do that step. “With the step, he described something that he could only vaguely grasp throughout his life and dismissed lightly when someone spoke of the difference between the mind and the heart. “The heart and the emotions are the key. They are the gateway to a greater reality, a different life, fulfillment and truth. We all know that there is something, intuitively we all know it. We try to understand it out of the mind – so stay empty. The heart has its own intelligence that can communicate with this reality. It’s our inner voice. ” They are the gateway to a greater reality, a different life, fulfillment and truth. We all know that there is something, intuitively we all know it. We try to understand it out of the mind – so stay empty. The heart has its own intelligence that can communicate with this reality. It’s our inner voice. ” They are the gateway to a greater reality, a different life, fulfillment and truth. We all know that there is something, intuitively we all know it. We try to understand it out of the mind – so stay empty. The heart has its own intelligence that can communicate with this reality. It’s our inner voice. “
In that moment of deep silence, two doctors and two sisters burst in noisily; Apparently the devices had sounded the alarm and they feared that he had died. His previously known temporal dimensions had no validity, since he knew that at most a few minutes could have passed between his death and the now. He felt like half a day.
He looked down at his body from above, saw people jump around him excitedly, trying to save him after all. They injected him with some substance, started the resuscitation. The pain, the burdensome heaviness of the body, the ignorance, the imperfect quality of his love – all that he could easily have left behind, he was ready to go. He had decided.
“Your time has not come, you have to go back!” The most intimate and affectionate voice he ever heard conveyed to him the message that caused him the greatest discomfort, a discomfort and grief he could not have described in words , He did not want to go back. For nothing in the world – yet he felt that the force of that decision filled the room like a web of rays that made Aether tremble. He did not have to look away to see. He saw a cone of whitest light, in which the souls who loved him, gave him to understand that it was all right, that everything was all right.
Quite dull at first, then louder and more piercing, the noises pounded in his ears, torturing his head, which hurt as badly as his whole body, which he felt heavy like lead and felt strange to him. Seeing through his eyes again – first dark, then dim and blurry – assured him that he had left the all-encompassing reality and was in the physical world. The people around him were wildly gesticulating, shouting at each other, testing the equipment and congratulating each other as if they had given him the most precious thing he could have lost.
He did not understand. He still did not understand why he had to go back. In the midst of all the physical torment, in that impersonal and cold atmosphere of a hospital room between metal machines, with needles under his skin and surrounded by unknown people, he could clearly feel his heart glowing, almost bursting with love and joy and whispered to him subtly that he would recover. 
He did not understand yet. He understood, however, that he did not have to understand. He stared into the white of the blanket and began to sob softly – his tears wet his pillow and the collar of his pajamas.