“I almost Died”

“I almost died” is a phrase we hear all the time. For some it’s a phrase muttered by a very skinny crouching man in a movie theater describing how he felt watching Happy Gilmore 2.  For others it’s followed by “but then they Narcaned me”.   The point is there are levels to this shit.

For me I have almost died twice in my life. I consider them close calls. My heart never stopped beating or anything like that, but I feel life I’ve been closer to death than most people my age.

These two experiences happened 30+ years apart.  One at 3 and the other at 37. But I remember them both pretty clearly.

The first time I almost dead my family and I were on vacation at a Lakehouse in Maine. It was and still is  my favorite place on earth, even though my very short life was almost ended there.

My parents were inside the cottage playing a game with friends. It was the 80s so who knows what kinda game it was. I grab my  baby blanket and somehow walked out the front door undetected. My five year-old sister and her friend were playing at the base of the stairs as I walked by them out to the end of the dock.  There was a flagpole made out of a long skinny birch tree that stood at the end of the dock.  The rope was off the hook and blowing out over the water.  I took my blue baby blanket and tried to lasso the rope a couple of times so I could get it back on the hook, but I must’ve leaned out too far and I lost my balance and fell into the water.

I remember slowly sinking below the surface of the water, looking up at the edge of dock.  Stretching my hand out over my head, trying to reach it. It looked so close through the distortion of the surface. I felt like I should be able to grab it. I don’t remember how long I was underwater, but it was long enough for my sister‘s friend to convince her that I had fallen in the lake run up the stairs to alert our parents.  I remember it being at first confusing, it took a while for my little kid brain to realize I was in trouble.  I’m not sure I ever really did. I thought I was going to for sure reach the dock and pull myself out. as things started to fade to black I remember a peaceful feeling. The edges of my vision started to close in, like the end of a Looney Tunes episode. I didn’t panic  and I recall being almost curious about where the darkness led. Just as everything started to fade I felt a rush of water. My father’s friend yanked me out just as the darkness was about to completely close in.

I’ll tell you what, and I say this will all respect to anyone who lost a child like this. Dying as a three year old in a lake is the way to go. Blissfully ignorant to what was beyond the darkness. Like it was just another fun adventure

Dying of cancer in your late 30s feels like Earths gravity times a fucking trillion slowly wrapping its self around your ankle like one of the vines in Stranger Things.  It’s happens slow and fast at the same time. In the beginning you still feel like you’re in control. You’ll find something to break the grasp the vine has on you.  Like you’re going to reach the edge of the dock.  But with every decline in health you start to realize you’re not in control. There is literally nothing you can do to change what’s going to happen to you.  The only thing you can do is pump toxic shit into your body, and start hacking off body parts.

Something else, Something inside you, Something infinitely more powerful than you has decided you no longer belong here. You are to be exterminated, but first tortured.

This time there’s no luxury of childhood ignorance. There is only a full realization that everything you’ve accomplished in your first 37 years of life is about to disappear forever.  The friends you’ve made the reputation you’ve built the wife you married the children she birthed are not going on this ride with you.  You’re completely alone.

The pain becomes so great that at times you’re rooting for death. Begging for it, but resisting it with the same amount of passion. Take the body but let me stay. Let me be apart of this place forever. Let me see this life out: I was just getting started.

I almost died twice in my life so far.

Door #1:  Drowning in a lake a 3

Door #2:  Dying of cancer at 37 with debilitating nerve pain.

The good news is I cracked open each door and took a peak, but I’m still not prepared to walk through. The only thing I know for sure Is I’ll be going through it alone and I hope I’ll be curious about what’s in the other side.