the three deaths of harry smith

harry smith claimed to remember three near death experiences (though later on he only claimed to remember two).

 1.) aged 9- 10, up in the pacific northwest, he swims out too far and begins to drown - his life flashes before his eyes in chronological order.

 2.) later he lives above a jazz club in the fillmore in san francisco. after an afterparty with lots of heroin, gin and weed, they all get in the car for a drive. strangely, on one of san francisco's legendary hills the brakes fail. he is flung through the car windscreen, as he lays on the pavement a priest gives him last rites (and, he says, an opportunistic perv feels his balls). this time his life comes back to him differently. 

'a vast panorama. it was like a giant jigsaw puzzle that I could look at all at once, of my entire life laid out, each part fitted together... ...it was as if life was seen in a way where no mistake is possible. that everything fitted together well, it was absolutely extraordinary, that as it says, I believe in St. Mark 'his eye is on the sparrow' 
 'you see, there was like joy because I realized how foolish I was to have worried about the rent, and what people thought of me, and all those things, because they were so trivial in relation to the grandeur of the construction of the universe.' 

3.) that only leaves his actual death - he died at the chelsea hotel 27th november 1991 - all day his assistant (rani singh) tried to get him to go to hospital - all he would say was 'no.I'm dying. I'll die.' 

then he said 'I'm dying' , coughed up some blood and died.