Live or Die

Planes and Surgery....those two events always prompt me to assess my life in grave and serious ways. 

I really hate heights, much less hurtling through space in a little metal tube. Everybody around me looks cool and collected, bored even. They don't want me chatting them up, I've found. My kids have informed me that it is simply not done these days. I beg to differ. My whole life has been interesting because of all the wonderful, intriguing strangers I've met, who've been happy to tell me their life stories and birth experiences. Even if they are reluctant to talk at first, they usually end up spilling the beans on their innermost secrets. Occasionally, however, you just can't crack open those tough ones and I'm relegated to silence and my own thoughts of how I'm soon going to die in a fiery plane crash. And then there's trying to squeeze my abundant frame into the smallest possible space, trying not to lop over onto the other passengers. By the time I arrive at my destination, I have heartburn and muscle spasms. This is not fun.

And then there's the subject of surgery. I had a major one this last week, with a very large incision from hip to hip. I spent the days and weeks before it, pondering life and death and the end of civilization as we know it. I have found the best way to go under the knife is to be ready to die. Go ahead and go there. Make peace with all, spend time in the scriptures, pray a lot, confess my sins, have a clear view of my place with God, and then surrender to that anesthesia. I'm always surprised when I wake up. Then comes the pain and I wonder what in the heck I did this for. I was planning on death, not misery and suffering and learning how to go to the bathroom again. I have no right to complain -- my dear husband is the best nurse in the world and he took off a week to care for me. He's a much better physical caregiver than I. He thinks about things like a cool washcloth on the forehead, a fresh cup of icewater, putting meds on an actual schedule (rather than my random plan of waiting until I'm screaming in pain to take something). It's been a sweet week of spending time with him, though closings and real estate wait for no one, so he's helped me with that too.

Planes and surgeries, things looming at the edge of the universe. In truth, every day is a gazing at the precipice of eternity, 'cause we never know when our time's up. Our choices: we can live in cowering, perpetual fear of the unknown or we can just go ahead and really live and suck the marrow out of the day. Here's to life!