Lessons Before Dying

I always thought that if I had a wreck on my scooter that I would die. I figured it would be quick, and having watched my parents and Kerry’s die in various slow ways, I didn’t necessarily think it would be a bad thing. That was selfish, of course.

I did sometimes wonder if I should NOT wear my helmet to assure that I wouldn’t survive with my brain somehow intact with the rest of my body useless. It’s really amazing somehow that I can be as ignorant as I am.  Even with my helmet on, my brain was incredibly shook up; and at the assumedly really slow speed I was going, my body took a pretty severe beating. There are very few places on the road that I traveled back and forth to school every day where I would have survived. I am damn lucky… or something beyond luck… to be alive.

When God is ready for me, I will go. I’ve believed that for a long time. My children think I’m really morbid because I think, and talk, about death. But I think it’s really weird to be human and to know your life is finite and not think about that. I spent a great deal of my youth and early adulthood with undiagnosed depression and often looked at death as an escape to the pain of living. The suicide of a close friend cured me of ever seeking that escape for myself as I witnessed the aftermath on the people who loved her, including myself… a  scar that  remains for any who have experienced it.

In my early 30’s, I thought I was going to die in the Joyce Kilmer Forest when I was repeatedly stung by bees. Even though we had benedryl and I took some immediately, my head felt like it was swelling to the size of a giant pumpkin and I was having a sort of out of body experience. We were a couple of miles up the mountain from our car and several more miles even then from any kind of civilization. I was with my husband Kerry and we had left our girls with their grandmother. I was sitting on a rock trying to get my husband to go on down the mountain without me because I didn’t think I could make it and I was trying to think of last words to say to him. It wasn’t that I was ready to go, but I was satisfied that I had already had a wonderful life and I could die knowing that I had been given so much that I could die being grateful for what I had had…. Only I didn’t quite know how to say that….. and he wasn’t leaving me anyway.

We made it down that mountain. We made it across the mountain in our car to the little medical clinic where the doctor was worried about my blood pressure being so low.. but  it was always low. But it took me over a year to get over those bee stings… it just messed with my head.  I didn’t die, but I didn’t forget either.

I’ve thought a lot about the darkness I experienced before I came back into consciousness. I can’t help but wonder if that’s what it is when we die. Is it like going to sleep, only without the dreaming? Do we just drift into darkness? It would be so easy. But the narcissist in me cries out, but where would I be? And the believer in me says where are the promises?

This is what I have learned/believed of the promises of Jesus. It is true that it is more blessed to give that to receive. It feels better. It brings more joy. It makes life better. When we forgive others, it is not for them, it is for us. We are the ones who are healed. We follow Jesus because of the life it gives us in the here and now. He gave his life to show us the way. It is in the giving of our lives that we receive our lives. Is there more? I believe there is. Do I have a clue as to what it will be like? I don’t think so. If it is a restful sleep in the darkness, will I be satisfied. I will. I have been given life in abundance.