The Night Before I Died
I saw Death smiling at me
I was tossing and turning at 2:00 in the morning.
Cool air has blanketed the city into a deep sleep. But I’m still in the land of the living, thanks to that third cup of joe. (Knew I shouldn’t have been so greedy!)
Lub-dub…Lub-dub went my heart.
In the hopes of lulling myself to sleep, my eyes turned to my bedroom window to watch the coordinated dance of branches and leaves. It’s become a habit of mine on nights like this.
But on this particular night, a ghastly creature appeared through the glass.
I…saw DEATH staring straight at me.
SHE was smiling…as is the case with anyone about to do something sinister.
Lub-dub-lub-dub, went my heart.
But not wanting to give in, I glared back, as if screaming, “Go away! You’re not welcomed here!”
I’ve never been fond of anything this creature represented. Death is a dirty little word…brutal, final, and most of all, treacherous. She has caused enough anguish in this world! She’s bad news.
Death is a cold coffin, a line of white crosses, and a solemn rite for some traffic mishap or a bout with cancer. Death is when that hallowed exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide inside the body stops. Death is when the thumping inside that chest of yours, stops…never to come back. It’s a quiet brain that signals no life or consciousness.
But the more I considered this ghostly apparition outside my window, the more I realized how little I truly knew of this beast.
(Beast? Hmmm. Let’s be honest, she’s none of the sort. Far from it.)
Staring death in the face that early morn, I realized, she was infinitely more than coffins and crosses.
Death is an old flame…a lost memory…a forgotten song.
She’s a yearned-for past and a tight grip on the sands of time.
“No sleeping to be had tonight anyway,” I thought. So I surveyed life’s terrain and saw death everywhere — her marks staining every beautiful human experience — from cradle to the grave.
A baby’s belly button is but a cute relic of the physical cord that used to bond mother and child. That physical bond is dead now, and they will never be as close as when they were one.
A baby walks, and we celebrate…as if it is not the death of the four corners of a home. That baby will be going places now…even to those dark streets and corners of life no parent dare imagine.
Weddings are a kind of death too! (In more ways than one.) That’s why, like in funerals, folks also cry at weddings. It is the death of the single man and the single woman. Those rings slip into those fingers to quietly mark the passing of an era…to a start of a new one.
These are deaths that we get to live through.
Without death, there are no new beginnings, no second chances, and no clean slates.
And so death ushers in the new and clears the way for the next. The old is gone, never to return, except as ethernal memories — in old pictures, old files, old trophies — yes, those kitschy objects collecting dust in the graveyard known as the attic.
As it turns out, death is not the terror of our dreams. She’s a necessary ingredient for every beautiful beginning.
I was tossing and turning at 2:03 in the morning.
DEATH appeared.
She was smiling.
I smiled back.
I’m 38.
A few hours from now, I’m going to die…
I’m gonna leave it all behind.
I’m going to get married to my best friend and the love of my life.
