If you were to die today, would you be happy with the legacy you left behind. What will be said about you when you’re gone?
These were the thoughts that plagued Heather Anne Naples’ mind in the moments she thought she was dying.
After having an excruciating headache lasting four days, Heather had exhausted all home-remedy treatments with no relief. Still she believed her doctor when he told her not to worry.
“I called my doctor, I’ve had headaches before and this was no cause for concern, he said,” Heather wrote on her blog, Heart & Home. “And then, in the middle of the night…it popped.”
Like that, Heather’s headache was gone. But it was only the beginning of the end. At least—that’s what she thought.
“As sudden as the headache had come it was gone, and I felt or heard a “pop” in my head that woke me from my sleep, followed by a warm sensation rushing through my brain. A friend had recently lost her mother to a brain aneurysm and I thought, “This is it,” as I shook my husband awake and frantically called 911.”
Positive she was experiencing the final moments of her life, Heather was only focused on one thing—her daughter in the next room.
“I sat on the carpet in our hallway, rocking back and forth while clutching my knees as I waited for the ambulance, and distantly heard the dispatcher’s voice in my ear, as I asked my husband to turn on his video camera.”
Preparing for the worst, Heather instructed her husband to get out his phone. Speaking directly to her daughter through the camera, she was determined to try to fit a lifetime of love and devotion into one final video message to her sweet baby girl—no pressure.
“I heard my daughter crying in her crib as I repeated over and over, ‘She will never remember me,’ and began a dialogue in to my husband’s phone that I prayed she would never have to hear.
Hi baby, I’m your mama. And I love you so very much.”
In the moments that followed, paramedics worked to save Heather’s life. All the while, she had the rare opportunity to truly reflect on her life—who she had been, how she had treated people, and the type of person she’d be remembered as.
“And that was the night my life changed.”
Heather explains motherhood as a piece of your heart walking around outside of your body after your child is born.
“And as the paramedics arrived that night and began their work, I realized that if those were to be my final moments, the tiny piece of my soul that was crying out my name from the next room would never have a chance to know me. In fact, she wouldn’t even remember me. All she would have is what I left behind; pictures, written notes, and most importantly, the stories people told her of me.”
Heather asked herself on the way to the hospital what those stories would be, and she didn’t like the answer.