"I thought I’ll only be alive for maybe a minute longer, so I only have to keep trying to figure out how to save my life for one more minute."

"I told myself I can’t give up until I pass out. I remember that I hoped for a fast death. Then something switched in me. I was okay dying.... Now I realize that the time when I could not breathe was probably less than a minute. I had accepted the pain and my death after only 30 seconds."

Penelope Trunk describes her post-9/11 path, from high achievement in New York City to retreat, of a kind, in Wisconsin.

Who would seek this gift of knowing what you would think if you believed you were living the last 30 seconds of your life? But if that gift arrived... what would it look like?