When Ben was born his parents were delighted to have him with them. Unfortunately, during a pediatric visit, he was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The doctor said Ben didn’t have a lot of time. Instead of crying and mourning the news his parents decided to make every day count and to be thankful. They didn’t see any case in worrying about something that hadn’t happened.
Every day that went by, they would thank God for letting Ben be with them one more day. Time went by and Ben’s condition would flare up occasionally. The way that Ben would let his parents know his condition was acting up was to say that his heart was pumping. This meant that Ben was having an arrhythmia. Sometimes it was very hard for everyone to remember that Ben had a heart condition because he was so happy. The first time he was close to death was when he was four years old.
He had a 45-minute-long seizure and his parents thought that they would lose him. When he came back he told everyone that he had seen a very bright light that he was sure was an angel. After that, he had a tonsil surgery where he experienced his first cardiac arrest. Fortunately, the doctors could bring him back. On December 6, at his high school, he has his second cardiac arrest. During this second cardiac arrest, his heart stopped beating for a full three minutes. What he would describe shocked everyone in his family. He said that he woke up in what he called “the waiting room of Heaven.” He said that he had experienced a profound unexplainable feeling of peace.
After the incident, his family was sure that God had let him experience all this because Ben had been very afraid of death. He had been through more than a couple of episodes where he really felt he was going to die and it had terrified him. He experienced what Heaven felt like, and the peace of God. He was not scared anymore. Ben’s friends and family wanted to know more about his visions. Ben started making videos on them and posting on YouTube.
At one Christmas morning, Ben was excited and opened his presents. Then, he went out with his brother to see a bunch of friends who were playing on a trampoline outside. Ben had a very big smile on his face. This would be the last time his mother would see him smiling. When his mother looked out the window Ben had already passed away. Everyone rushed out and started administering CPR. Then, they took Ben to the hospital.
After a while working on Ben, the doctors confirmed that there was nothing else that they could do. Ben’s videos had become very popular and he started to have a following on the Internet. Thousands of people watched his funeral online in about 1400 people attended his funeral in person. One day, one of his friends approached Ben’s parents and asked them what they thought about the video. The parents did not know what he was talking about so when they got home they decided to look. What they saw left them in tears.
