Dying To Really Live

By Duane Smith

Stanford Medical Doctors diagnosed a young family man with an untreatable condition and sent him home with 5 months to live before dying. Being an Agnostic, he didn't fear death but grieved at the thought of leaving his young family. 

13 months later, he died but returned unexpectedly. but what he was promised, before returning, changed his life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Duane Smith
• Release date: Mar 10, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386520023

Book preview

Forward

Finally, an after death experience that penetrates far beyond death, far into the Afterlife, providing unique insights into many of life and death’s puzzling questions, as well as surprising hope for the coming decades. 

Written by an after death survivor who was returned from the Afterlife, for the same reason, many others are now being returned, with a surprising message of hope. They are being returned in ever increasing numbers, telling people that what looks like chaos, is actually the greatest renaissance in human history, as predicted by the Egyptians, the Mayans, and most great religions.

Finally, there is a book that sheds new light on some of life and death’s most puzzling questions. Dying to Really Live is about what happened to a successful young family man was given five months to live by a medical specialist from Stanford Medical Center, and 13 months died. Only, in his case, he was sent back with answers to questions people have been dying to have answered for thousands of years.

Be there as this young, nonbelieving agnostic is greeted in the afterlife by his beloved grandfather, and Butch, his favorite childhood dog, both central characters in a Rockwellian childhood. Then, be there as he is taken far beyond death and shown things that on his return would change him forever. Also, be there as he shares what he hadn’t been taught in Sunday school.

Rob Schlosser, Publisher

How It All Began

In which I question, is this all there is?

1977 to 1981

In my late thirties, just when everything seemed to be coming up roses in my life, something slipped vaguely off-key. At the time, my business and professional life had progressed nicely. Finally, my wife and I could afford what we thought were the finer things in life—things for which we had dreamed, worked, and planned; things that society had taught us would bring us happiness.

Early in my life, I had observed people who had lots of money and seemed to be living the good life, and I decided that I wanted to be rich when I grew up. I assumed that people with boats, cars, and airplanes had to be happy; right? So as a young boy, when people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I always reply, A millionaire.

My young family now consisted of two preteen daughters (around whom our lives revolved), the family dog, and an independent cat. We were happily ensconced in a beautiful old Cape Cod house, our home in the idyllic Shakespeare mecca of Ashland, Oregon. In our garage were the requisite his and her Mercedes. Mine was a sedan, and hers, the 450 SL sports model, purchased for her birthday. Out at the local airport were two airplanes just looking for ways to prove their worth to the family: one was for recreational flying, and the other for longer distances. With a ski area just a few miles outside of Ashland and a sailboat for the lake, we had it all. I had to be happy, right?

It was icing on the cake that my other family, the kids from an experimental program that I had developed and taught in the local school system for a few years after getting out of the Army, were also mostly doing well. The program originally had been for children who struggled with school and often had challenges at home. However, as the program developed other bright but bored students wanted in because of the type of open-curriculum we used. For quite a few of the students, our classroom had become somewhat of a surrogate family, and many had stayed in touch. Even the most broken of the bunch, a little girl named Teresa, seemed to be on her way to getting her life figured out.

As I considered my life, I had it all, and what I didn’t have was within easy reach. Early in my life, I discovered the power of setting goals, and by my late thirties, I had achieved almost all of them —even the millionaire part, several times over. My family and I had been building bigger houses and taking longer and more extravagant vacations. For several years, I had felt we were just one step away from happiness—just one more something, and we’d finally be satisfied and happy, ready to enjoy real happiness. While we enjoyed some parts of our life, we always seemed to be one step removed from real, lasting happiness.

Even the last six-week family vacation in Europe, although perfect, still hadn’t scratched the itch I always felt. I began to suspect that the next bigger and better something wasn’t going to do it either, and, of course, it never did. In fact, what made it worse was a growing realization that I really didn’t have any idea what real happiness was, or how or where to find it. I had finally come to realize that happiness was more than the feelings generated by another new boat, or a bigger, faster airplane, or a longer more expensive and vacation. Then, when my wife began talking about our next new house, to be perfect needed to be smaller instead of larger, I knew that she too was feeling those same unspoken frustrations.

Given Five Months to Live

The world is a fine place, and I would hate, very much, to leave it.

—Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

March 1981

As we began to realize that it would take more than money alone to bring us the happiness we sought, something went terribly wrong. A medical condition that started out as a minor health annoyance took a turn for the worse. The doctor who was handling my case called in a specialist from Stanford Medical Center near San Francisco.

After a thorough examination, he was optimistic. He said they were developing a new breakthrough operation for what, until then, had been an untreatable condition. Also, they were about to test another medical procedure, and he felt I might be an excellent candidate. While characterized as major surgery, it could offer significant relief if all went well. And if it didn’t work, my prognosis wasn’t good anyway. To my wife and I, there was no question as to our decision, for without the surgery, where would I be?

More testing began, and I was poked and prodded everywhere and relieved of bodily fluids I didn’t know I had. Once all the tests were completed, it appeared the prognosis wasn’t as bright after all. Several doctors, as a group, felt that my condition had already deteriorated too far to survive the operation. Apparently, the problem I had led to an extreme vulnerability to heart attacks and strokes, and there was a distinct possibility I would die during the operation, from either of those reasons.

Even if I were willing to risk the new procedure, it seemed no doctor wanted to operate on a man whom he felt might die on the operating table from a stroke or heart attack. Though they didn’t admit it, they didn’t want to jeopardize their whole new program by having one of their first patients not survive the operation, even if their technique itself was perfect.

Their advice to me was to go home and get my affairs in order. They thought that at best, I had about 5 months to live.

I was only 41. What the doctor’s told me didn’t sink in, at least not at first. My wife and I knew we had hit a rough patch of sailing, but we didn’t really understand what was ahead. We had plans for our future, and there was no time, or room, for this. Also, I had several real estate projects underway, and commitments to keep. I guess it started to soak-in as we were driving home, and realized that we hadn’t been asked to make any future appointments.

Still, at first, the doctors’ verdict had less impact on me than I would have expected. Maybe it was because of the bone-numbing fatigue I was feeling after months of little or no sleep. I began to wonder if I did beat this problem, whether we would be able to find real, lasting happiness in the years to come. I kept asking myself, again and again, was life