Free 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper

want to talk to anyone, what I called “stealth shrinks” began to creep into my room.
    “I see you’ve been in a very severe accident,” one undercover psychiatrist said after reading my chart. He tried to get me to talk about how I felt.
    “I don’t want to talk about the accident,” I said. The truth is, I couldn’t. How could I possibly explain to anyone what had happened to me during the ninety minutes I was gone from this earth? How could I find words to express the inexpressible? I didn’t know how to explain that I had literally gone to heaven. I was sure that if I started talking that way, he’d know I was crazy. He’d think something had gone dreadfully wrong with my mind, that I had hallucinated, or that I needed stronger drugs to take away my delusions. How could I put into words that I had had the most joyful, powerful experience of my life? How could I sound rational by saying I preferred to die? I knew what was waiting, but he didn’t.
    I had no intention of talking to a psychiatrist (or anyone else) about what had happened to me. I saw that experience as something too intimate, too intense to share. As close as Eva and I are, I couldn’t even tell her at that time.
    Going to heaven had been too sacred, too special. I felt that talking about my ninety minutes in heaven would defile those precious moments. I never doubted or questioned whether my trip to heaven had been real. That never troubled me. Everything had been so vivid and real, I couldn’t possibly deny it. No, the problem was I didn’t want to share that powerful experience with anyone.
    That didn’t stop the psychiatrists from coming into my room and trying to help me. After a few times, they didn’t tell me they were psychiatrists. It’s humorous now, but the hospital psychiatrists were determined to help me. After I refused to talk to them, they would sneak into my room and observe me. Sometimes they came in while a nurse was working on me. Other times they came in and studied my chart and said nothing, and I assumed they expected me to start a conversation.
    Often they’d walk in and say something like, “I’m Dr. Jones,” but nothing else. The doctor might check my pulse and ask, “How’s your stomach?” He’d examine my chart and ask pertinent questions. Eventually, he’d give himself away with a simple question such as “How do you feel today?”
    “About the same.”
    “How do you really feel about all of this?” No matter how they varied the routine, they always asked how I really felt.
    “You’re a psychiatrist, aren’t you?” I’d ask.
    “Well, uh, actually, yes.”
    “Okay, what do you want to know? You want to know if I’m depressed? The answer is I’m very depressed. And I don’t want to talk about it.”
    The conversations went on, but I’ve blotted most of them from my mind. Even though I knew Dr. Jones and the others were trying to help me, I didn’t believe there was any hope. I hated being depressed, but I didn’t know what to do about it.
    The longer I lay in bed, the more convinced I became that I had nothing to look forward to. Heaven had been perfect—so beautiful and joyful. I wanted to be released from pain and go back.
    “Why would anyone want to stay here after experiencing heaven?” I asked God. “Please, please take me back.”
    I didn’t die, and I didn’t get over my depression.
    I didn’t just refuse to talk to psychiatrists; I didn’t want to talk to anyone about anything. I didn’t want to see anyone. I would have been fine if no one visited me—or so I told myself.
    In my depression, I just wanted to be left alone so I could die alone, without anyone trying to resuscitate me.
    I also had enough pride as a professional and as a pastor that I didn’t want anyone to see how bad off I was. I don’t mean just the physical problems; I didn’t want them to know about my low emotional state either.
    When people did get into the room to see me, of course, their words