Good Morning Major!
***Advanced warning and apologies for the length of this post!***
When I was first returning from Cancer I had trouble getting work and finally got 3 part-time jobs. One of them was as a bartender. I was wearing a nitro glycerin patch due to breathing issues; a chemo drug had left microscopic scarring on my lungs. One night, at the bartender job, my Boss gave me a hand truck and led me to a big room full of large kegs of beer. I had been warned to avoid heavy lifting and my Boss knew this. He told me I had to move all of these kegs to a cooler about 150 yards away just behind his desk. We worked in a Arena venue. So, even though I knew the risks, I started moving the kegs. Sometimes the nitro patch made me lightheaded, nervous, and/or shakey. On the third keg I started breathing harder and broke a sweat. Somewhere around the 6th or 7th keg (I can't remember exactly) I became extremely lightheaded, then nauseated, then breathless. I was almost at the cooler; at that point but my inhaler was a floor above me in my locker. Then BAM! I passed out cold and hit the floor.
Suddenly I was flying up a tunnel made of rough hewn, rectangular, black stones toward a bright light. I was getting closer to the light and I thought, "Father, I'm coming home to you."
I woke up with a start. My Boss was standing over me holding my wrist. He told me he was just about to call the ambulance. He said I wasn't breathing. he said my pulse was weak and thready. I felt like I had been run over by a tractor trailer rig full of those &^%#$@!)^ kegs. I was able to finish out the shift on lighter duty.
A few days after this incident I became extremely depressed. I kept asking myself, "Why? Why? WHY? Why was I allowed to return to this life when it seemed like better people than me, small children, even babies were passing away. I just couldn't figure it out and it was consuming me. This went on for about a month and a half.
Then I woke up one morning (and thank God) I had an epiphany. I'd probably never know why I was returned to this world and this life. I relied upon faith to believe that the Creator had a reason I was brought back here even if I never knew what it was. I decided to go forward and do my best to ease the suffering or anguish of others and trust that whatever the reason was that I was spared that I must be doing what I'm supposed to or I wouldn't be here.
This quotation seems appropriate this morning:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Excerpt from DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO
THAT GOOD NIGHT -Dylan Thomas
I agree with you 100% Major: it is another great day to be alive.
