“Only when we realize that our time is limited do we begin to appreciate the value of every single day.” ~Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
I didn’t expect the trip to begin the way it did.
In December 2003, I decided to take a holiday over Christmas. I booked an eco-tour of Sri Lanka, traveling around the country and staying in different locations. It was something I had been looking forward to for a long time.
But during the flight on Christmas Eve, I started to feel unwell. At first, I thought it was just a stomach issue. Nothing unusual when traveling. But the discomfort quickly turned into something more serious. I began to feel a deep, persistent pain in my lower back.
By the time we landed, I knew something wasn’t right. I made it to the first hotel, where a doctor was called. I remember lying there, trying not to make a fuss, as he examined me. The diagnosis was a severe kidney infection. I was given strong pain medication and told to rest.
It was Christmas Day. Not quite the start I had imagined.
My room was a small bungalow on the beach. I could hear other holidaymakers outside enjoying themselves while I lay in a darkened room, trying to get through the pain.
The next morning, a note had been slipped under my door. The tour was due to begin later that day, but because I had been so ill, the hotel manager had agreed that I could stay behind and recover.
The idea of missing the tour didn’t sit well with me. I had come all this way, and I wasn’t about to spend it lying in a room while everyone else left. So I made the decision to go.
I took the medication with me and told myself I would manage.
Looking back, there was no sense that anything significant was about to happen. No warning. No feeling that this decision carried any weight beyond whether I would enjoy the trip or not. I just didn’t want to miss out.
We left the hotel and headed inland, beginning the early part of the tour. It wasn’t until the following day that something felt off.
We saw news footage on a television, but it was in a foreign language, and it was difficult to understand. There were images of destruction, water, confusion—something about a tsunami.
Our tour guide told us it was Thailand. That was partially true. As the day went on, bits of information started to come through.
At that time, only a couple of people on the tour had mobile phones. They began receiving messages—short, unclear, but enough to cause concern. Both of them were being told that they had been listed as “missing.” It didn’t make sense.
Then I managed to call a friend back in the UK. She answered the phone in tears. She kept saying, “Thank God… thank God.”
I didn’t understand at first.
And then it became clear. People believed we were dead. The hotel we had stayed in—the one we had left that morning—had been flooded.
The scale of what had happened was still unfolding, but the reality was already there. We had been in that place, at that time, and for reasons that had felt completely ordinary, we weren’t there anymore.
There was no dramatic moment. Just a quiet, sobering understanding that things could have been very different.
Once our families were able to confirm that we were safe, the immediate tension eased.
Later, we asked to be taken to the area that had been affected. It was much closer than we had expected.
The rest of the trip took on a different tone after that. As a group, we did what we could to help where possible. It didn’t feel like much in the context of everything that had happened, but it felt important to try.
When I returned home, I wasn’t prepared for the reaction.
The messages, the calls, the number of people who had been concerned—it was overwhelming. People I hadn’t spoken to in years had been following the news, trying to find out if we were alright.
It was an emotional time, but not in the way I might have expected.
What stayed with me wasn’t just what had happened—it was how many people had cared.
I had never really stopped to think about that before.
Life had simply carried on, as it tends to do. But being placed, even briefly, on the other side of that—being someone people thought they might have lost—brought a different kind of perspective.
It shifted something. Not suddenly, but enough. Over time, that shift became more noticeable.
I began to look at things differently—what mattered, where my attention went, what felt important and what didn’t. I found myself drawn towards helping in ways I hadn’t previously considered.
That eventually led me to spend time in Southeast Asia, volunteering and working with communities in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. At one point, I was invited to stay and work in a Buddhist monastery, helping support blind students.
There was no single moment where I decided to change direction. It was quieter than that. More of a gradual turning than a sudden leap.
Looking back now, I think about how it all began. Not with the tsunami. But with the illness I didn’t want. The inconvenience I tried to push through. The thing that felt like it was getting in the way.
At the time, it was something to work around, something to ignore.
I don’t try to explain what happened. I don’t feel the need to give it a meaning or attach a conclusion to it, but I do see it differently now.
Not everything that disrupts us is against us.
Not everything that feels like a problem actually is one.
And not everything important announces itself in a way we immediately recognize.
That trip began in a way I resisted.
It unfolded in a way I didn’t understand.
And it left me with something I didn’t expect.
I still think about how close it all was. But more than that, I think about what came after, and how easily I might have missed that too.
About Neil Burgess
Neil Burgess is an Akashic Records reader and teacher with over 30 years’ experience working with people from around the world. His work focuses on helping individuals gain clarity and perspective in a grounded, practical way. Following a life-changing experience in Sri Lanka in 2003, Neil went on to spend extended periods of time working with Buddhist monks in Southeast Asia and exploring a more purpose-led direction. Visit him at globalakasha.com. and learn about getting an Akashic Records reading here.
