I recently had a near-death experience and spent 3 weeks in intensive care with heart failure, hovering close enough to the Gate to hear the Angel of Death flap his wings...

All I could think of was "I'm barely 50 years old. This isn't fair. This can't be real. Dammit, how can this be real? Oh God, how will I tell my wife? How will she cope?. This isn't fair. Death is for other people, not me. Oh God, how can life continue as normal for the people outside my window? I hate them. How can the doctors and nurses joke and laugh when the universe will end soon? God, this can't be real... Death is for other people... This is is so unreal... It's supposed to me at the other side of the bed providing false comfort to the patient, not me BEING the patient... This can't be real.... I am the protagonist in this story, aren't I? It can't happen to me... When I die, the universe dies... Oh God, let me live -- my wife can't cope. God, even though I don't believe in you, I'm sincerely asking you to let me live for her sake. I'm not being selfish -- She can't cope. This is really happening -- I won't wake up from this to find it was just a dream..."

As it happens, I'm making a spectacular recovery and feel terrific, contrary to what three doctors and a senior nurse told me to expect. I've made out my will, and thrown out a tonne of stuff I don't want to be found after my death, but I feel so liberated and alive right now you wouldn't believe. I'm as giddy as a schoolboy.

Have I learnt anything from this? I don't know. Just that a human life is too short. Having lived a half-century, I can envision a full century. It's not enough for me . Not nearly enough. Not by a long shot. I'd need a thousand years just to read the books I've already bought... A thousand years, please. It's not too much to ask... is it?

No wonder Blade Runner is my favourite film. Man confronts his maker and asks why he has so little time. The maker doesn't know. Man kills his maker. Man accepts his lot. Man dies....

Reading this back, I think I sound self-involved and Narcissistic. I don't think I'd like me, if this were all I know about me.

So, life is too short. Big insight, eh? Woohoo!

Please indulge and forgive me.

I am so glad you are on the mend and chose to share your story with us!
Thank you and continue to feel better

aA
Kesha

I turned 60 years old in July 2012....I've been thinking alot about how short life is.

....since Carol died. Wow, the time flew. I have held true to the "do nothing big for a year" thing. I've just been maintaining the status quo, so to speak. But, I am rapidly approaching a time when I have to make some big decisions.

Hope all here are fairing well, too.

moving through
sometimes feeling so numb--emotionally numb, mentally numb
i'd say dead, but...
a few good days
some real hard days with heavy emotional crashes
the other night it was over a beloved dog i lost a month & a half after i lost my mom--
recently realized my mom went for 35 years without her mother.
i thought there's no damn way i'm doing that!
can't hardly even imagine that.
but their relationship was different than mine & hers
she was a far stronger person than me
anyway, as my mom would say, "i'm still here"

My former Father-in-Law was diagnosed with a brain tumor just after Christmas and died a couple of weeks later. He was 87 and buried on my birthday. Divorce sucks. I still love my in-laws like parents and the loss to the family is great.
I don't know how my former MIL is going to manage without her best friend and companion. She's strong and I know she'll be ok. Her sons will look after her as best they can. She'll want for nothing. They planned well.

Our cat blackie had to be put to sleep 2 weeks ago. He'd been laying around and his breathing seemed laboured. He wasn't eating or drinking so my husband took him to the vet. Turns out he had a tumor on his liver that was so large it was pressing against his stomach and pushing it into his lungs. The cancer had metastasized to the lungs. He was only 7.

These two events have shaken me to my core and I'm not dealing with them very well.

I have to stop now ... it all becomes too much some days.

aA

Did I miss a post about your f-i-l? I lost my f-i-l in 1992 (he was 67 years old). I think about him often and how my m-i-l has missed him all these years (she is now 86).

Poor Blackie....that's way too young to lose a cat....I hope you will have some comfort and peace soon as you think about the days when everything was good and hold those memories in your heart.

write that he's gone.

He was my first husband's Father but oh how I respected and loved him for the fine Patriarchal figure that he was.
He loved his family and they in turn loved him so much.

I was a great disappointment to him when I divorced his son. I could never bring myself to talk about it to him but we did remain congenial through the years. Seeing each other at my granddaughter's birthday parties etc.

I will miss know that he's out there and forever feel bad that I didn't write to him sooner.

He died just a couple of weeks after being diagnosed with a brain tumor. I wrote a letter to him and to my M-I-L and spoke of things that should have been cleared up years ago. Unfortunately the letter arrived after he passed.

I will forever regret that.

Thanks for your kind words.
I don't know if I'll ever have peace, it seems to evade me these days. Sometimes you just have to wonder if it's worth it all y'know?

I will be ok.
thanks for responding to my post.
I appreciate that more than you can know.


aA
kesha

My winter project for the past three winters (I'm in PA) has been to digitize all of my photos and slides. I am going in chronological order and am only to 1988. Looking at the old pictures has been so comforting, in part because some of the people have been gone for many years and it's just nice to "see them again" and remember the good times. May your good memories erase any doubts you have of your relationship with your former in-laws.

will calm down a bit after competition.