Ash Perrow | Transformational Coach

Dear Death,

I didn’t know you were going to come so quickly. I was truly surprised when you arrived. There was such a deep sadness that I was dying and no one I loved was in the room. No one.

Yes, the medics were trying to keep me alive, calling my name. Telling me to keep my eyes open…but I just couldn’t. I knew I was dying and I couldn’t hold onto life any more.

As I blacked out something strange occurred. I didn’t ‘fall asleep’. Instead, I became ripples. I was moving out in all directions. The ripples were me and I was them.

‘This is what it is like to die’, I thought. Somehow I still felt like me. There was no pain. I was just ripples, moving infinitely outwards— and I could still think!

I started to say ‘I want to stay, I want to stay’, but I was still dying. Moving forever outwards. 

‘I want to stay for the kids. I want to stay for my partner’. Still dying. Still moving outwards.

A sense of warmth and light came over me. ‘I want to stay for the work I do and walk the planet from my heart’.

Instantly I was back in my body. My eyes opened. I was alive!!!

The pain was immense and I couldn’t help but scream. Even in the pain I was grateful. I was alive!

Things changed very quickly after you visited me, dear death. I realised I had been living my life for everyone else BUT me.

I made a contract to live from my heart and I began exploring what that meant. My relationship ended just after I got out of hospital. It had to.

Life began again with a fresh start. What does it mean to live from the heart? What is my work?

I’ve learnt so much about life, love, joy, grief, the human condition and the things we cannot see.

My new life is truly, truly beautiful.

Thank you death for visiting me 8 years ago. I am so grateful.

With love, Ash

—Ash Perrow (2024)

Editor’s note: In November 2016, Ash went into hospital for spine surgery and during the operation the surgeons inadvertently tore a vein—then stitched Ash Up and returned him to his hospital bed to recover. Over the following 16 hours Ash bled out internally, resulting in him entering cardiac arrest the next day. His letter is a condensed description of his near-death experience while he was ‘clinically dead’ for several minutes. For further information about Ash, visit his website at: www.ashperrow.com.

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