What brain surgery taught me about the fragile gift of consciousness

After the trauma of a high-risk medical procedure, Eric Markowitz discovered a kind of consciousness that lives not in thought — but in presence.

Excerpt: "And yet, hours before surgery, with death still in the room, I didn’t feel fear. I felt something quieter. Stranger. I felt connected. To her eyes. To my breath. To the weight of my feet against the floor. To the wind brushing the window. Even to our cat, oblivious, licking her paws in perfect peace.

The world had never looked so alive. Every detail sharpened, sacred. Time no longer moved. It hovered. Held. The future dissolved. The past let go. All that remained was one long, luminous moment. And in that moment, I was tethered — to her hand, to the stars, to everything. I was, finally, conscious.

Upstairs, in a crib painted white, our 18-month-old daughter lay sleeping. Her body rose and fell beneath a cotton sleep sack, rhythmically, gently — life announcing itself in the smallest of gestures. I thought about her growing up without me.

Not in a morbid way but in the way you might watch a boat disappear at sea: helplessly, lovingly, full of prayers you’re not sure where to send. I wept quietly and without shame. I imagined her face at 5, at 15, at 40 — her smile not knowing its origin, her kindness not realizing its inheritance.

I wondered how I could leave her with a memory she could never possess. I hoped she would know how deeply I loved her. And in that moment — that unbearable, radiant moment — I was, for perhaps the first time ever, conscious.

Not in the neurological sense. Not in the academic or philosophical sense. But in the raw, elemental sense of being awake to the miracle and the absurdity of existence. Alive to the texture of being. Aware of the great impossibility of life and my small, flickering role within it.

I wouldn’t wish the circumstances on anyone. But I would give anything to return to that moment of clarity. That intimate, holy sliver of knowing."