Happy Birthday, my Baby of Light

It has been 41 weeks since Brandon’s death. Brandon was one week overdue at birth – 41 weeks. He’s now been gone for the same length of time he once nested and grew within me. I’m odd like that. Maybe because I work in mother-baby nursing or maybe I went into mother-baby nursing because I think like that. Who knows? I only know that carrying him during the last 41 weeks have been very different from carrying him at the beginning of his time on this earth.

I had an extremely uneventful pregnancy with Brandon – no morning, much less all-day, sickness as I’d had with my first and would have again with my third (twin) pregnancies and few discomforts, even during the last few weeks. Never mind how uneventful the pregnancy, I was anxious to meet my second baby once his due date came and went. I felt almost certain this baby was a boy, although he was born several years before ultrasound was available. I somehow knew a girl’s name would not be needed. This baby would be Brandon. (How he got his name is another story.)

Labor started early March 15, several days after his due date, and it progressed as usual for me – long and slow. (Since it was our second baby and Joe, then a third-year medical student, was on call at a hospital the night of the 15^th going into the 16^th, I figured I was a shoe-in for a quick labor – hah!) So it putzed along through Friday the Ides of March into Saturday, March 16^th.  But as with all pregnancies and labors, it did finally end. Our first beautiful boy, Brandon Conrad, was born into his father’s hands at 12:38 p.m.

And then the strangest and most wondrous thing happened for me. I’m not really sure how to describe it, and there is no way to explain it. However, I want to be clear that I was quite healthy, awake and aware. At no time was I in jeopardy during the labor, birth or thereafter. Horrible hunger pangs during every contraction were the worst issue I had to deal with during labor, and the reason I requested a cheeseburger the moment I left the delivery room. 

The experience I’m going to attempt to describe happened within a few minutes of Brandon’s birth. Looking back it seems both part of and yet completely separate and unrelated to Brandon’s birth. I’m almost positive that he was lying on my chest at the time, but I’m not completely sure.

All I know is that in one moment I had just given birth and was feeling the excitement of meeting my new baby. I was hearing the voices of my husband, the obstetrician, and a good friend, who was a labor and delivery nurse colleague and acted as doula for me/us that day. I was noticing but not truly focusing on any sights or sounds except for my baby.

The next moment I was living in light. Literally. In that time, which may have lasted less than a second or may have continued for several minutes, time was meaningless. Everything is connected, everything is part of everything else, and everything is soft yellow-white light. (I tried to write the past tense “was” for the previous sentence, but I can’t because it is incorrect. Only the present “is” works.) Within the experience of light, solids still appeared to have varying densities, so they appeared as different solids but at the same time they appeared transparent. The air in the room was still air yet it was light and one with the solids.  

In the midst of it all, I was also light and I was immersed in intense feelings of perfect peace, perfect comfort, perfect love. I saw no apparition – only the objects in the room, although all objects were light – and I heard no voice, yet no apparition or voice was needed. That I was profoundly and perfectly loved and accepted was clearly communicated, and I remember a “knowing” that this is God.

The light ended and the room, plus everyone in it, abruptly shifted to “normal” the moment the realization hit that I was experiencing something beyond extraordinary. It was as if time had been standing still and now began to move again. Life moved on as it tends to do. I kissed and cuddled my baby, I hugged and kissed my husband, and I got my requested cheeseburger.

Brandon and I seeing eye-to-eye right after his birth.

Afterward, I wasn’t preoccupied with thoughts about my experience in the light. I didn’t have time; I was a busy mother who only got busier as twin boys and then a second daughter joined their two older siblings. But then and from time-to-time since Brandon’s birth, I’d thought about this experience and about its possible meaning. It was reassuring to recall the feelings of peace and love, but the recollection was in no way like the experience.

Then my baby, my Brandon was diagnosed with cancer and the roller-coaster ride of hope and despair left the station and continues today. I began again to ponder the meaning of my experience in the light. It was only after the cancer took Brandon’s mortal life (and killed itself in doing so – stupid disease) that I think I may have a clue.

I think an all-knowing, all-loving Creator was letting me know, even as Brandon entered this life, that Brandon would have to leave this life earlier than expected. Call it a foreshadowing, perhaps. I believe I was shown the depth of love and empathy the Creator has for me (and for each of us), and how that Creator is here for me in this pain of Brandon’s death. I believe I was being shown that there truly is no time for the Creator and that all are one in time and in light. I think.

Today marks 39 years since my experience in the light. Dear Creator, I could use a reminder experience. Today, Brandon’s birthday, would be nice.

Miss you so much, Brandon. Live on in the light that I seek again but struggle to find.

Matthew 17: 1-2

After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light.