finality

 One thing that has really been impressed upon me over the last 4+ months of never-ending health issues is the finality of it all.  I’m not necessarily talking about mortality – although that certainly has its place in the topic- no, it’s the fact that these issues are now issues that I will have until the day I kick this nasty oxygen habit and assume room temperature.

For most of us, if you think back a bit, any childhood malady like a broken bone of chicken-pox, or even something worse – a broken heart after having broken up with the “love of your life” – at the time they happened, it seemed like they would never end.  And, they were THE most cataclysmic events ever recorded in the history of man, too.  I remember having pneumonia in 4^th grade, and I was out of school for almost 2 weeks, and when I went back it felt like I would never catch up.  When I was 14, my first "real" girlfriend broke up with me, and I was completely and totally devastated for weeks. I literally said aloud, “That’s it.  I’ll never fall in love again.  I won’t let it happen.”

(this October will be my 39^th wedding anniversary, btw)

We always seem to get over these things- and in fact- we even forget them or at least most of the circumstances surrounding them.  If you were to ask me why my girlfriend broke up with me, I know I couldn’t tell you.  I don’t think she could tell you now, either.  Oh- it was vitally important then, but now, not so much……..

Now, normally, I am so delightfully insightful (ahem) that people’s entire lives change when t hey read my posts (the crowd yawns……..) but probably not this time.  If you are my contemporary, you already know how supposedly “important” things when you were 16 are so NOT important now, and things that weren’t important when you were 16 are extremely dire now- yeah, yeah, yeah……..

But I have to ask: do you really know that?  I'd be willing to bet you don't.  I know I didn't.

I, like many others, suffer under the delusion that these kinds of things always happen to someone else.  I mean- yeah- as I’ve gotten older, a lot of values and ideas change.  Some for the better, some for the worse- and just like everyone else I would see those things change within myself and I’d say something like, “Geez.  I sound like my dad now”, and make a joke about kids in the neighborhood getting off my lawn.  I still giggle every time I’m in a grocery store and hear “Iron Man” by Black Sabbath on the Muzak system.  The other day, my wife and I were having dinner at a restaurant and they were playing “Bulls On Parade” by Rage Against the Machine while other couples were having romantic suppers nearby……I’m reminded of the mom in Monster’s University sitting in her car listening to ‘her music’……..

But I digress.

We’ve all done it.  Not only that, but we think that’s the extent of it.  A few minor changes here and there and life marches mercilessly on.   Well, let me tell you…….

In the blink of eye, that can change.  You won’t even see it coming, either.  When you least expect it, it will sneak up on you and bang you over the head like a screen door in a hurricane.  Only quicker and with way more finality than you ever thought possible.  Seemingly small and innocuous things can suddenly have far reaching and even seemingly non sequitur consequences.

8 years ago, a dear, dear friend of mine went out for a jog around the Greenlake area of Seattle.  This was a nightly event for my friend, and he’d done this hundreds of times.  And, as a result of this, even though he is about 4 years my senior, he’s in fantastic shape.  Mentally and physically, he was doing very, very well – until a few minutes into his run, around a particularly desolate corner of the trail he had a massive cardiac event and dropped – dead.  A runner on the same trail found him – no one knows how long my friend had been there – and the passer-by was none other than an off-duty paramedic, who managed to resuscitate my friend, call for help, load him into the ambulance and disappear back into the night.  For several days, my friend lay in a drug-induced coma with his body temperature lowered to prevent further brain damage as his friends and family prayed and hoped he'd wake up...........

My friend survived.  Not only that, but without any brain damage at all.  He bounced back in record time, and to talk to him now, you’d never know that any of this had happened.

That is, until you bring this subject up.

The night after I left the ICU, I had something happen to me in the hospital room that was exactly a“screen door in the hurricane” kind of event.  I shan’t go into it here, because it was way too personal (and the story long), but suffice it to say that it was life-altering.  In some ways more so than my actual death just a few hours before.  It was something that constantly haunted me and  I could not shake it for next week as I waited to leave the hospital.  When I got home on December 23rd, I sill couldn't get it out of my head,  I ended up asking three very trusted friends to come over and talk with me about it.  Among those friends was the one who had died some 8 years ago. 

I'd never had an occasion to talk with my friend about his experience – I thought it was too personal a thing to bring up in "Casual Conversations"  (sorry- Supertramp reference) but this was a different scenario.  When I brought it up to him, my normally affable friend turned very, very serious.  I don’t know if my other two friends that were there noticed it like I did, but the room got a lot darker and heavier as he and I talked – at the expense of my other two friends – about the extremely and intensely unique experiences we’d both had.  It was almost as if he and I were speaking a completely foreign language.  To an outside listener, I’m not sure that they would have understood what we were talking about at all, because to talk about one’s death in the past tense is just not a normal topic of conversation.

And this “special language” is really what I’m getting on about.  As we get older, the things that happen to us have much more immediate AND long lasting effects, and it’s very difficult for people who haven’t experienced those things to understand that.  I’ve had conversations about my own medical problems of late, and folk’s reactions have sometimes been pretty comical;

“Wow.  That’s terrible.  Did I tell you about the time that I had to have a hemorrhoid removed?  It got infected and I couldn’t sit down for 4 months.”

“I know a guy who went in for a minor appendectomy and died 4 days later.  They found out he had cancer and didn’t know it.  He left a wife and 2 small kids”

“You must feel pretty lucky to be alive.  You should have bought a lottery ticket.”

“I have a neighbor who told me he’s died about 4 times.  He says it’s no big deal.”

(Yes- these are actual responses I’ve gotten.)

Hypocritically enough, I, too, have made statements like the above.  But not anymore.  What I’ve learned through the particular trauma that I’ve suffered is, that, yes, it’s unique, but more than that, it just can’t be made light of or played as a poker chip in some weird contest of “How Bad Has It Gotten For You?”.  I’m also not saying that what I’ve been through is any worse than what others have been through.  I honestly don’t know what possesses people to go into “comparison mode” about these things, but I suspect that it has something to do with a level of uncomfortability about the subject that people try to equate to their own experiences.  All I do know is that I don’t do it anymore.  Moreover, when I hear other people bringing up their own similar-ish experiences, I just keep my mouth shut entirely – even to the point of waving someone else off that said, “If you think you had it bad, you ought to ask Marc about what’s he’s been through”.

And the finality of it that I spoke of in the beginning of this post- I’ve lost not only time and my health, but my employability, my ability to walk and drive a car, my retirement, my ability to travel – all with the errant wave of a scalpel, near asystole and cessation of my renal system.  It’s difficult to grasp.  I’ve been through it, and I can barely get it.  This has challenged me in ways I never thought possible, right down to the gut level.  The questions are almost endless, and some of the answers will probably elude me until my dying day.  I realize now, that I wouldn’t have ever really “understood” something like this without having gone through it myself, so how can I hope to make others understand it?  

I know that this all sounds super depressing, and I’d be lying if I said I haven’t experienced more than a few dark moments.  I have, and I probably will continue to do that.  But, more importantly, I’ve also had some moments of real understanding about what life is truly about and why we are here in the first place.  I’ve come much closer to understanding my place in the universe and to understanding the nature of and manifestation of God, and I no longer fear my own death.  (hey- I already saw the trailer…..)  I have also learned that as people pass away, the process for them is not scary, and we should all take some comfort in that. 

And most importantly of all – I have learned to stop the comparison of experiences and try and listen to someone who is in pain or distress.  I mean really listen.  Not for the purpose of trying to fix it, necessarily, but to listen and give time to people who are losing time and give them that human connection when all other connections seem lost.  (BTW- that is part of the nature and manifestation of God.  More on that is coming up in future posts.)

It's funny how the viewing of these things change in our lives.  I’ve found that part of this journey pretty fascinating from my own POV, and that it continues to evolve.  And even though the cost of this lesson has been pretty high for me, I look forward to learning more.