By Denise Mannino
The date was April 9, 2011. I was a cynic. My spirituality had become dry and meaningless, even though my family regularly played music at a Sunday worship service. I just didn’t have the same spiritual connection I felt decades earlier. My sense of communion with a “real” and personal Source was dead, and I felt like I was simply going through the motions of life.
I was working hard for a wonderful company under a manager who was harsh and irrational, and it was literally making me ill. Ironically, I thought I was healthy—a vegan for over a decade, vegetarian since high school, very active, riding my bike to work more than most of my other active coworkers.
Living in Seattle, winter is not my best riding season, so I was doing yoga for exercise and to improve my back strength. April 9th was the first beautiful day for a bike ride, but I opted out, feeling somewhat tired. I felt a little twinge of guilt, but accepted my lack of motivation. It’s wonderful that I listened to my body and inner guidance—or I wouldn’t be here now.
After dinner, while brushing my teeth, I collapsed on our bathroom floor with a ripping pain in my chest that made me think I was having a heart attack. I couldn’t even believe my own voice as I yelled to my husband to call 9–1–1 because I thought I was having a heart attack! I was in enormous pain, feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest, but the only thought I had was, “You are not afraid of dying, so don’t go out of this world hysterically.” Immediately, I sank into a deep, altered state of calm and bliss in spite of the pain. I felt invisible spiritual support surrounding me.
Medics were at our house within minutes, they did an EKG and politely told me I was not having a heart attack. I thought they must think I was having bad indigestion, but because my vitals were weird they took me to the hospital a few minutes from our house. The ER staff at the hospital was baffled, but finally decided to do a CAT scan about 45 minutes after I’d arrived.
No one could have guessed how critical my condition was until the scan confirmed I was having an aortic dissection.
The reason they were baffled is because most people die en route to the hospital when the aortic aneurysm ruptures. Miraculously, the outer wall of my ascending aorta somehow held, even though I was slowly bleeding into my chest cavity. The ER doctor told me they were calling all over Seattle to find a specialized team that could do surgery that night. He added, if I didn’t have open heart surgery that night I was going to die.
Amazingly, the next hospital down the road had a cardiothorasic surgeon on loan from Nashville. He met me at the hospital where a team was racing to assemble before my aorta fully burst. I had just enough time to meet him, and then say good-bye to my husband and youngest son, before I was whisked into surgery.
My sister in Redding, CA, was racing to find a flight to Seattle; a family member who works within the national network of hospitals told her I might not be alive when she got to Seattle, but he added the good news that I had the best heart surgeon in the country working on me.
The next few days, I was kept in a medical coma, but intermittently I would be somewhat conscious, thinking I was having a reoccurring bad dream as I’d hear someone say, “Denise, be calm. You are at Overlake Hospital and you’ve just had open-heart surgery.”
At one point in those comatose days, I opened my eyes and my sister was holding my hand doing a spiritual treatment over me.
When I glanced around the room, and saw my whole family, I knew this was “reality,” then I slipped back under the anesthesia.My open heart surgery had been on Saturday night, and by Friday of that week, I was going home—in great pain and very apprehensive—but glad to be getting out of the hospital. I wouldn’t be able to return to work for three months, but the Sunday after my release from the hospital, my husband, son, and I went to the mass where we regularly played music.
(For those who are familiar with Catholic liturgy, we’d missed the 5th week of Lent because I was in the hospital—but the story from the Gospel was on the raising of Lazarus from the dead, rather symbolic to me!) This was Palm Sunday, and I couldn’t hold a guitar and was in no condition to lead music, so another choir member led, but we were able to sing two a’cappella songs after communion. To do this so soon after surgery was another miracle, and all I could do afterwards was sit down in the pew and weep for joy at not only being alive, but also still being able to do my favorite thing, sing with my husband and son.
Later that week, I saw my surgeon for a follow-up appointment. I was gushing with gratitude about his skill, and he humbly explained to me how he had no power over life or death. He was simply a “plumber” and he did the best work possible but, ultimately, he didn’t know who would live and who would die. He told me about a surgery he had done a week before mine. Everything looked great; the team was closing the young woman up when she inexplicably passed away. Then, very soberly, Dr. Binford looked directly at me and said, “When I opened you up, I didn’t think there was any possibility we could save you.” He gave me the details, and the underlying message from him was:
YOU ARE A MIRACLE. Use your life wisely.
During my three months of recuperation, I wrote reflections every day to process this event. Initially the experience forced a change in my life, but I became SO grateful for that change that I realized I would not trade this near-death crisis for the “perception of perfect health” because of the deeper meaning I had acquired. In reflection, I knew this experience was part of a “sacred contract” I agreed upon before being born. Very symbolically, my birthday fell on Thanksgiving Day in 2011!
The “awakening” I experienced caused my family to reevaluate our “expired lives” and become open to big changes that would more fully resonate with the journey this event had started.
During a sabbatical later that year, we took a five-week road trip trying to find some place to relocate—a place with more sunshine and a good growing season. My passion was to cultivate a sustainable living environment, and yet during this wonderful vacation nothing resonated. Fortunately, our discernment and “listening” process had become more attuned!
In February 2012, we visited our daughter’s new home in Palm Harbor, FL, for the first time and we saw realized there were many affordable homes in this area. On the last night of our short jaunt, we visited Tarpon Springs and truly fell in love with the town. By April, an affordable historical house with a large double-lot became available. Sight unseen, we bought it!
By August 15th, we had arrived in Florida and were unloading our truck. By September, I put out feelers for more conscious connections to sustainability by starting a weekly blog in the Tarpon Springs Patch. I met other wonderful people and we started building a community here. We now have a thriving permaculture garden in our backyard, eating out of it daily.
And, of course, all of our connections in this area came together out of a deep desire to build spiritual community and Grow Together in this life journey. We found a community, we found a spiritual family, and we now host weekly potlucks with anyone who shows up to share.My transformation journey continues each and every day. I am no longer a cynic! I am deeply in love with my life and see all challenges as opportunities for more growth—for however longer the time I am granted. It is all a gift!
Denise Mannino’s eclectic spiritual journey includes being raised in a reformed Jewish family. Her mother’s heritage was Orthodox Judasim; her father was a Jewish convert who was the eldest son of the first Borean Baptist missionaries to Natal, Brazil. She and her sister grew up between two very different religious worlds and discovered their ability to be bridges between a variety of faiths, always seeing the common Source of Spirit and Universal Thread in all practices. Denise’s path includes Catholicism, Self-Realization Fellowship, Center for Spiritual Living, Sufism, Buddhism, New Thought and personal meditation. She can be reached via email at manninoarts@tampabay.rr.com.