From Skull Slice to Skipping on Stars

Sometimes Life needs to really throw us down to get us to listen.

Three years ago right now, I was getting my skull sliced open so a massive (benign) brain tumor could be removed. She, like all pain, was an opportunity — a gift in disguise — and in this case, for me, she was a screaming invitation for me to be my body’s best friend after decades of ‘addiction’ to food and sugar. 
​
Today, I am three years old. What? 

On the operating table during brain surgery, I had a near death experience (NDE) that catapulted my capacity to see the Light of Love, the Light of God. This is why I capitalize all those words in the sentence you just read. They’re divine, all reflecting one another. I was shown up-close. 

This is now my second Life, so today I am three.

In celebration, I will take you through a little visual journey that I’ve not yet shared with this level of detail. Part of my reason for sharing today is that my namesake is heading home for hospice. She is 92, physically frail, and on her way to the other side. Next week my writing will be in devotion to her, and for now I give thanks for my own precious Life, as she makes her transition. 

This first photo was taken on January 30, 2021 while hiking with my daughter. It was early in the Coronavirus pandemic and I had been depressed for five months, lonely, isolated and overeating. I was 60 lbs. overweight, which is considered obese; I felt heavy in every way. And I had noticed a strange crookedness on my face, one side of my mouth leaning down. I didn’t know it yet but I had entered early paralysis. I went to Kaiser for a scan (MRI) of my skull. 

On February 1, 2021, I had a call with a neurosurgeon who told me I had a massive brain tumor, the size of a mandarin. My facial expression here says it all. ​

After a nine hour surgery with eight people working on me in the operating room, I was rolled into a patient room where I had taped a drawing from my daughter on the wall. Two unicorns, Helena and Mama. Her Love helped keep me alive. ​

The first six weeks of recovery were painful. I turned to the stars inside of me, the divine Light that greeted me close-up during my NDE, to help me take deep breaths to move through the pain. Fifty-two titanium stapes kept my skull shut as the wound healed. My hair on the unshaven side had been tied up since surgery, and had become matted. Eyes closed, deep breaths, I kept seeing stars — golden yellow, glimmering, eternally serene stars that felt like the breath and song of God. ​

My mailbox overflowed with cards. Penned adoration from friends, family, so many cards expressing Love for me. Taking another dose of painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications, I would hear a knock on the door and… there was another stunning bouquet of flowers.

Where was all this Love coming from? I wondered.

It was like I was standing under a waterfall after a storm, being cascaded by the ever-generous glow of God. People kept telling me, “Jess, it’s because of all the Love you give — it’s all coming back to you now.”

​Sometimes it felt like too much. Where do I put yet another card, and another bouquet? ​

Once the staples were removed (yes, the bouquet is much lovelier to look at than this next photo), and I could walk without pain, the whole roof flew off.

My Life felt like a constant spray of shimmering stars.

When I walked down the sidewalk, it was as if I was skipping on stars. The pool of golden Light that filled my pelvis during near death, now swallowed me whole — permeating my every pore and inhale.

Everybody glowed.

Everybody was utterly lovable.

​Everybody was a reflection of God.

​As a prolific writer since I was five years old, I giggled at myself when I tried to write to my lead neurosurgeon. What words could dare attempt to express my gratitude for him? Somehow, words landed — right beside tears on my paper — and he was so grateful.

Three post-op MRIs later, my skull remains tumor-free and there isn’t an ounce of regret about any of this in my being.

I have seen the face of addiction — the human choice to outsource the Love that is God, the agonizing despair we feel in the presence of this outsourcing, and when I surrendered to let myself be led by something much greater than me — I was shown the divine Light swimming inside of us. I wish this kind of pain on no one. Yet I humbly accept that we humans seem to need pain to wake up, and… And so it is. 

Whether stapled up or drugged up, or skipping on stars, Love is who we are — we are entirely loved and lovable — glimmering with Light. And so it is. 

Star-kissed hugs,
Jessica
Jessica Rios, Writer +Mother + Founder, Leaning into Light