Death is not all its cracked up to be

Like everyone else, I frequently read how people cope with the possible imminence of death. I'm in this boat, and it's all different.

Most articles I read dealt with terminal cancer patients. I'm not one of these.

I've had a number of heart attacks and a pulmonary embolism. After the last heart attack, my heart hasn't healed.

So I pamper myself like an invalid, mainly because the least activity brings on breathlessness or an attack of angina.

One doctor, when asked for a prognosis said "It's absolutely impossible -- we can't be sure". Another doctor says "Anywhere from inside this month to a couple of years."

Naturally, I would prefer a couple of years, despite the fact that I am anchored down in a reclining chair, not only by my heart but by crippled knees.

At first I made a lot of jokes about my situation, lugrubrious and otherwise. That lasted for a few months. The only thing that disquieted me then, was not being able to think of a future and dream my usual daydreams: about when I'd win a $100,000 sweepstakes, about when my book that is being published later this year, would be a best seller; about next Christmas, even this summer.

That sobered me somewhat and I found I wasn't really joking about the frailty of my health and making gleeful preparations for my own funeral.

I was not facing the truth.

All of a sudden, the past could easily make me cry -- things that were and can nevermore be. Little things like running and dancing and even walking rapidly.

It seems as if I lived in a prison cell with an open door, and the door had suddenly clanged shut. As is usual with me, pessimism took over: I would die sooner, not later.

I stopped working on a second book because everything seemed so futile. I have had my first book, about special education, accepted and it's going to be published later this year.

I found myself asking, "Will I still be here? Will the book be a success?" Or like a lot of other things at the moment seemed to me, a failure?

I looked back on my many years of teaching (I'm now retired) and longed to see the children again, which is rather ridiculous since most of them aren't children anymore and most have likely forgotten about me.

Remembering little things like leading my class downstairs to lunch or out to a fire drill, made me wish to escape into that part of the past.

Eleven years ago, my husband, a truly wonderful man, died and left me with memories that people thought should comfort me. They didn't -- they just made my circumstances more bitter because the happiness was gone.

Five and a half years after his death, I ran into trouble with a school principal who maligned me and harassed me and made me quit after a number of months of his persecution.

My job, my profession, my pupils were all that matter to me at that time. I didn't think my own adult children needed me any more. I over-dosed on sleeping pills.

Despite a coronary arrest, pneumonia and a six day coma, I lived.

When I returned to life after the coma, I found myself full of spirit, glad to be alive.

As luck would have it, I met another wonderful man, and we were quickly married.

Despite reduced financial circumstances, we have had almost five years of happiness.

However in the last 2 years, my knees gave out (I have had too much bone surgery).

When I had a heart attack last summer, the doctor suggested using elbow crutches to reduce the strain on my heart. I can walk a few steps without crutches, but not more than a few.

Also, standing for any length of time, is an absolute impossibility; my legs buckle and I am liable to fall. Rising from a fallen position is difficult, not to mention the pain.

So my poor husband who is also retired, does the household chores and shopping.

One of my doctors suggested that I do as much exercise as possible, this side of angina and shortness of breath. I looked at him, wanting to ask him, how. He anticipated my question and answered, "Yes, I know it's very hard."

Both doctors have lately, been so exceedingly considerate and kind and no longer mention my weight problem. Their attitudes make me uneasy.

I prayed a lot and asked my friends to pray for me. Suddenly it seemed to me, I was wanting in faith. Certainly, anyone can be optimistic when the sun is out and the flowers wave in an early Spring breeze, but what about faith when the weather is bleak and gray?

One of the things that made me sad about my short-term mortality, was [the idea of] parting with my second husband and with my children.

Where was I going after death, anyway?

Certainly I've read many books about people who came back from death and told similar stories of a personage of light and happiness, and of going down a tunnel toward a light. They all say they aren't afraid to die anymore.

It's easy to accept if your own death is a nebulous thing which will someday occur, but when you have a negative prognosis -- tomorrow, next week, next year -- you start, very seriously, to remember what many people have said about death.

Suppose they are right, that we are only highly evolved animals who happen to have advanced thinking, and not spiritual beings?

Is it then true that we die and that's the end of everything -- the end of love and dreams; we just stop being? That's pretty hard to swallow now. You wonder who is God and what is God and where is God...

Our telescopes have traversed way out into a universe that is so many light years away as to seem practically endless to a mere human being.

Where can I find God? Modern science seems to say that nothing is absolute, all is relative.

I'm not afraid of the actual dying; I don't expect to suffer long periods of pain. The watch will stop -- that's all.

I don't know if my prayers or my friends' prayers were answered, but it suddenly came to me to give up trying to think out life and death, earth and heaven and hell.

I suddenly realized that for all our mental prowess, we human beings are limited, with a small finite brain that cannot encompass the mysteries of now-where, then-gone.

A certain peace settled over me as I began to think. "Why opt for a month, what not opt for several years?"

There was another problem to be solved -- my being so limited in movement. That seemed less a burden after all. I can still see and smell and talk and think. I can still use my hands and I'm well aware of the brave souls who cannot do these things and STILL carry on.

I seem to myself to have been cowardly, and cowardice is not one of my ways, I hope.

All of a sudden, I find myself daydreaming again, of things in the future, even next Christmas.

If these dreams prove futile, who cares? I will have enjoyed them.

Of course, even after the acceptance of things as they are, occasionally fears and bitterness and longings arise, but they don't last long because the new me won't put up with such nonsense.

I am lucky in many ways, and I am enjoying to the fullest, each sweet day. When the sun shines, it shines for me. It may not shine every day but when it does, it's glorious.

All of the things in nature are gifts -- I have a wonderful husband and children and many friends. I won't get greedy at this point. I'll live as much as I can and when the old ticker stops, death will be a grand adventure.