We were staying several weeks at a monastery in Framingham near Boston. One of our dearest disciple friends, Polly, would pick us up from there to drive us each weekend to New York to visit Guru. On our third trip at a rest stop, my husband Pieter, then already in his nineties and ill with cancer, stepped out of the car. Suddenly he became unable to stand on his legs or move them.
With greatest difficulty we got him back into the car. Unable to speak, he shook all over his body, was ice cold and obviously in a very serious condition needing urgent medical attention. We were about an hour or more from New York, some three hours from the monastery. I asked Polly to call someone in New York to let Guru know. We decided to return to the monastery—a long trip, during which my husband lay in the back, unable to speak and with a high fever— and one of the monks then kindly guided us to the local hospital. After several days in the hospital, Pieter was released, and we returned to the monastery, hoping to spend a few days there before returning to Canada.
Instead of improving, Pieter rapidly deteriorated, calling aloud all night for Guru and Christ to help him. By morning, he was so seriously ill that the monks were coming to his room to pray for him. By early afternoon, he lost consciousness. We were then alone. I took the crucifix from the wall and placed it on his chest, took his hand and prayed for our Father's Will to be done. I do not know how long I sat with him in silence, when he opened his eyes and in a small but clear voice said, "I have seen the beauty of Christ."
I thought he may have been hallucinating and started questioning him, "How did he look?"
"Beautiful and very happy," he said. Christ had told him he would be healed.
I said, "Yes, you will soon be with him and there will be no more disease."
"No," he replied, "he told me I shall be healed and we shall be together."
"Yes," I said, "we shall always be together."
"No, no," he said, "we shall be together here on earth, and there shall be much happiness."
Soon afterwards, the pain became so intense that he began screaming at the top of his lungs, and I asked the monks to call an ambulance. "By chance", the hospital's best kidney specialist received us in Emergency. He was on the way home but stayed to attend to Pieter, who was in complete kidney failure. I called Polly to ask Guru for help.
Pieter was quickly brought into intensive care. They could not operate given his age and other conditions. The next two days his life hung on a thread. The second day, by late afternoon, the Fathers from the monastery came to bless Pieter and say their good-byes. He had not regained consciousness.
They took me aside to ask what arrangements should be made. I said, "Not now, please!" and was told they had to get an undertaker. I called Polly to let Guru know and ask for his help. I also called Pieter's children overseas to let them know.
That night at about 1 a.m., when I was still on my little chair next to my husband's bed looking at his quiet face and closed eyes, he suddenly opened them and sat up straight in bed without even supporting himself on the rails. I jumped off my chair, ran to him exclaiming, "Oh my God! We were so concerned about you!"
In a firm voice he replied: "Why? Didn't I tell you that Christ told me I would be healed?" Then he asked for something to drink and eat. As I had to switch on the light, a nurse and doctor came to inquire what was going on. Pieter said he was hungry and wanted something to eat. Considering this out of the question, the doctor held up some bottles of medication telling him this is what he could "eat". At this point my husband got quite upset. The two started arguing at quite a volume.
The nurse tried to mediate. She suggested a blood test to convince Pieter of the continuing seriousness of his condition. The results came back totally normal.
The doctor meanwhile had checked him as well, finding everything normal. I was overwhelmed with gratitude and thanked the doctor, who could no longer contain himself. He threw his arms into the air, screamed not to thank him as he had not done anything and never had seen such a thing in all his years of practice. He was totally upset, screaming over and over again, "I don't know what has happened!"
To calm him down, I quietly said, "God."
He screamed back, "What do you mean?"
I said, "Do you believe?"
He said, "In what?"
I said, "In God."
He ran out as if the devil was after him and we never saw him again.
Pieter was released from ICU the same day, and after several more weeks in the hospital he was discharged. I called Polly to let Guru know and thank him for Pieter's miraculous recovery.
Although the cancer never left him, by Guru's grace he never needed surgery and lived five more years—a time of great happiness and extraordinary blossoming of the soul. Many disciples helped care for him during this time.
One evening, unexpectedly, seven disciples came. Pieter was so happy! He was in great pain, repeating constantly, "Guru, Guru, Guru," while looking at the Transcendental photo on his bed. We sat around him, prayed, sang Guru's songs and held him in our arms as he quietly left us. We stayed together for a while longer. None of us had seen death before. With Guru, life and death is a blessed experience for which to be grateful.
Friederike (Ottawa)
