The Garden at 9,000 Feet: Amber’s Choice During a Christmas Stroke

On December 22, 2021, Amber Cavanagh, a 40-year-old mother was making gingerbread houses with her family. That night she experienced a brutal headache that kept growing. Overnight the pain masked a dissecting carotid artery that led to a completed middle cerebral artery stroke. By morning, Amber could not speak or move her right side. Paramedics rushed to her aid and she was quickly prepped for a helicopter transfer during a brutal winter storm. As the helicopter lifted her into the air, a beam of morning sun struck her face.

Then everything changed.

Crossing Over

In an instant Amber found herself in a garden that felt more real than anything she had known. She described grass and water that carried a life of their own, everything radiant with what she called the light of God. There were no spoken words. Everything arrived as knowing. Time stretched. Minutes felt like fifty years.

She was not alone. Guides she had come to trust sat with her on a bench. She recognized beloved animals, including one that had not yet died in the physical world. She sensed her husband and children as their higher selves. At the edge of the garden, dozens upon dozens of figures gathered. When she looked closer, she understood them to be her other lives, present to support her. “We can look separate, but we are not actually separate,” she said.

In that place she looked like the best version of herself. “I was wearing a beautiful white eyelet dress. No heaviness. No pain.” There was no judgment for past choices. Only understanding, as if veils of amnesia had lifted. “Every choice I had ever made made sense.”

Then the crowd. Dozens, then hundreds, gathered at a distance. When she focused, recognition bloomed. They were her other lives, the rest of her, present to support the choice she must make. “We are all kind of one,” she realized. In the garden, there was no judgment, only context. Every regret from her life softened into understanding. The plan beneath the pain became visible, and with it a calm freedom.

Encounters and Messages

Amber’s guides made it simple and profound. She had a decision to make: return to the physical world or remain on the other side. No pressure. Only clarity. They showed her both paths, including the ripple effects for her husband and children if she stayed, and the grueling road ahead if she returned. If she went back, she would eventually write books, speak with influential people about the gift of learning, and undergo a concentrated course in patience over the next 18 months, with the first six to eight months being the hardest of her life.

She also learned timing. Her guides indicated that if she were going to die, a grand mal seizure would occur after arrival at the next hospital, and that attempts to resuscitate her would fail by 12:22 on December 23. She was told exactly what would happen, and she could watch it if she wished. “There were no words,” she recalled. “Everything was telepathic.”

The Return

Amber made her choice, she was going back. The garden vanished. She did not land directly in her body but in what she called a light-filled waiting room, able to witness her hospital course without pain. When the predicted seizure began, she watched the frightening convulsions and medical staff scramble. As the seizing ended and her body dropped into deep postictal sleep, she rejoined it fully. “Then it was blackness and pain.”

Medical imaging showed the damage was so extensive that surgeons decided brain surgery would not help. The odds were merciless. She could not walk, speak, eat, or use the bathroom. Tubes supported basic functions. The team prepared her family for a long-term care reality. Yet hour by hour, something stirred.

On December 27, just days later, Amber rose and took her first steps to the bathroom. The long, patient road her guides had described had begun.

Reflections

Amber’s account is not a verdict on the afterlife. It is a witness statement. She insists God was not a person but an immeasurable presence. Love was the baseline, not reward. The point of coming to Earth was learning through contrast, with guides walking beside us rather than judging from above. “If you ignore the lessons they’ll keep throwing them at you,” she said. Her experience reframed suffering as curriculum, not condemnation.

Her story also anchors in the body. This was a serious medical crisis: a left carotid dissection leading to a completed MCA stroke, secondary frontal involvement, and a post-transfer seizure. These details hold the mystery against reality like two panes of glass. What happened in the garden did not erase the rehab, the grief of lost function, or the daily work of relearning. It offered context and courage to face it.

Amber Cavanagh
“There was not one moment where I felt judged. Every choice made sense. Everything is love there, so we come here to learn.”

Key Takeaways

• The choice to return was honored without pressure, guided by love and clear understanding.
• Past lives appeared as a supportive community, reinforcing the sense of unity.
• Recovery became the classroom promised by her guides, especially the first 6 to 8 months.

Curious about my writing process? Learn how I made this post.

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