Exactly ten years ago, one Saturday morning in December, I woke up knowing I was going to die. I still know I'm going to die, but the feeling that morning was that Death was more than imminent, it was a granite-hard Presence that was simply THERE, filling up all the available space in the room.
I had no idea what to think. Ten years younger than I am now, I was on my winter hiatus from running 7.5 miles six times a week. I was healthy, I was strong. But this feeling - final, implacable and inevitable - had weight. It wasn't my imagination....it was as real as I was. The only thing that could get me, I reasoned, was a car accident. And I had a lot running around to do that day, just a few weeks before Christmas.
I remember doing some very fast thinking in the shower that morning, running through stages of grief outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I didn't have time for denial and anger, I remember thinking. Yeah, dying today would sure suck, but so would dying on any other day. At least I had fair warning. If I really were going to die that day, I decided I could spend whatever hours I had left with the people I loved the most, doing things with them and for them. And most importantly, I could savor the richness and sweetness and fullness of everyday, ordinary life... for as many hours as I had left, I could, in the words of Emily Gibbs, "just be."
And so I did. What's interesting to me, looking back, and remembering that twenty-four hour period that Death hung over me like an elephant on my back, is how sharp and clear the memories are of that day, how much I accomplished, how fully I lived. I didn't do much differently than what I had planned...it was right before the holidays and I had shopping and baking and wrapping and gifts to make, besides. As a sidenote, the feeling turned out not to portend my death (obviously) but that of someone very close to someone I hold very dear - someone who died in a car accident. Why I knew what I knew is still not entirely clear to me. The experience, however, forced me into a state of prolonged heightened awareness that contines to affect me. Among other things, the experience enabled me to admit to abilities long buried and denied.
I tell this story today because the papers are full of stories about the Mayan calendar and the fact it ends a year from now. I think it's a waste of time to argue about it. Whether its December 21, 2012 collectively, or any other random day individually, we all have to die. Everything ends, whether with a bang or a whimper. That day showed me the gift that the awareness of one's own death, one's own potentially immediate death, can be.
I remember the day I thought I'd die as a day I truly lived.
I had no idea what to think. Ten years younger than I am now, I was on my winter hiatus from running 7.5 miles six times a week. I was healthy, I was strong. But this feeling - final, implacable and inevitable - had weight. It wasn't my imagination....it was as real as I was. The only thing that could get me, I reasoned, was a car accident. And I had a lot running around to do that day, just a few weeks before Christmas.
I remember doing some very fast thinking in the shower that morning, running through stages of grief outlined by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross. I didn't have time for denial and anger, I remember thinking. Yeah, dying today would sure suck, but so would dying on any other day. At least I had fair warning. If I really were going to die that day, I decided I could spend whatever hours I had left with the people I loved the most, doing things with them and for them. And most importantly, I could savor the richness and sweetness and fullness of everyday, ordinary life... for as many hours as I had left, I could, in the words of Emily Gibbs, "just be."
And so I did. What's interesting to me, looking back, and remembering that twenty-four hour period that Death hung over me like an elephant on my back, is how sharp and clear the memories are of that day, how much I accomplished, how fully I lived. I didn't do much differently than what I had planned...it was right before the holidays and I had shopping and baking and wrapping and gifts to make, besides. As a sidenote, the feeling turned out not to portend my death (obviously) but that of someone very close to someone I hold very dear - someone who died in a car accident. Why I knew what I knew is still not entirely clear to me. The experience, however, forced me into a state of prolonged heightened awareness that contines to affect me. Among other things, the experience enabled me to admit to abilities long buried and denied.
I tell this story today because the papers are full of stories about the Mayan calendar and the fact it ends a year from now. I think it's a waste of time to argue about it. Whether its December 21, 2012 collectively, or any other random day individually, we all have to die. Everything ends, whether with a bang or a whimper. That day showed me the gift that the awareness of one's own death, one's own potentially immediate death, can be.
I remember the day I thought I'd die as a day I truly lived.
3 comments:
Thanks for the insightful piece. Our own mortality can be, as you have written, a wonderful motivator. Keep at it my friend.
… on the topic of death …
I've said it before, and I'll say it again ~ there are no straight lines in Nature … so nothing is linear … there are no beginnings and no endings … just life … moving … always moving, always changing … and always always. :)
Last month, I had what was probably a gall bladder attack while at a tax seminar in Myrtle Beach SC. I kept thinking, "If I die at a tax seminar, I'll be really angry." Then there was a fire drill at a recent tax seminar and I thought... well you know. Which makes me think, why am I doing this?
Thank you for your insights and support. It helps me every day.
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