Life And Death: Nothing To Joke With

It always amazes me how quickly life can turn on a dime.

Just yesterday morning, I was happy and seemingly “healthy”, enjoying a brief morning at home before heading out for the day.

Well, things took a drastic turn for the worse. By the time I showed up to Life Time Fitness in St. Louis Park, intending to walk my dogs from there and then head inside to make the most of the amenities (after first stopping for a grocery run at Whole Foods), I was reaching the edge of what I could bare.

I was sick to my stomach, and tried lying down, to no avail. I can only lie down sideways in my car these days, due to the fact that I now have a cage up to stop my dogs from crawling up to the front seats.

So, awkwardly sideways I tried, until I realized this just wasn’t cutting it.

I leaned to my left, against the door. Wrong choice. Nausea instantly kicked in in an upright position. I gave myself opportunity to puke by opening my door, but I’ll be honest, this tough-as-nails chick doesn’t puke well. My reflexes are too easily overridden by my mind and my inner strength.

Clearly not always a positive “trait”... as the next moments make clear.

I tottered between all three choices once more - laying down sideways, sitting upright, and opening the door to allow myself to puke. I knew I had to act fast for how quickly I was slipping, but I just didn’t know how to best help myself. I was losing consciousness but with no clear knowledge of what next to do. I leaned over my open door one last time. What happened next I found out only later. I fell out of my car and hit the ground.

~ Passage of time ~

(What I found out later... It was about a 20 minute passage of time down on the ground.)

Next thing I know, it’s dark, then, I’m “Up There”.

I tell myself, decidedly and forcefully, “You HAVE to go back. You HAVE to fall back.”

So I did.

And I feel the passage of time - I truly perceived about 20-25 earthly seconds as my soul plummeted as quick as it could back to my earthly body. I saw layers of time and light, like various experiences that I was to have yet. I actually felt the required patience needed to ride out the journey back to earth.

And when I returned, BOOM. It all was like a movie scene. The layers of time and light as I came back to my body, and the noise and lights and realities of life as soon I felt myself on the ground. My eyes subsequently popped open.

Within a nanosecond I ignored the aches and mustered all strength I had left within my body and spirit and BOUNCED UP like you could barely imagine. In that moment, my spirit had become so determined and feisty to live again that I shot up like a rocket, looked around and grabbed some water. I very quickly and decidedly made my next course of action.

I called a couple friends who lived in the area, but to no avail. But I knew even driving a few blocks or a few miles at this point could prove fatal. So all the way across the Life Time parking lot (I always park furthest away), I stumbled.

The crazy thing I realized within that incident is that because of the snowbanks, and the fact that I literally was parked within 18 inches of the neighboring car, NO ONE saw, and would even chance upon noticing for potentially a couple hours!

I let my friend at the front desk know what I needed as soon as I walked into the gym, and then proceeded to receive care and attention as I passed the next four hours at Life Time, until someone could come and bring me safely home, with a few room changes due to outside circumstances, and puking a few times within that time. The paramedics did come, at my allowance, but they did not take me away that day.

It is in these types of situations you realize some pretty basic things:

1) Gyms and public buildings are kept SO cold. Even two down jackets couldn’t keep the cold out.

2) Just a basic place to LAY DOWN can be a game changer, and a LIFE SAVER!

3) How incredibly important it is to have friends and family you can call on in times of need.

What has my mind reeling and processing through this so deeply, is how death has weaved its way throughout the last week, and couple of weeks respectively.

Starting off this week, while in the Life Time locker room, is when I first heard of beloved Kobe Bryant’s death, just 9 minutes after the incident. Then, the following day, Monday, I played piano for a memorial service at an assisted living home...

Preface this with the last book I read being heavily laced with the topic of death and how it’s bound to happen to all of us, and how we see it as such a viable means of “escape” amidst the greatest pains of life, and then a couple weeks back... one of my longest-standing friends/acquaintances from high school was struck and killed by a car. And he had messaged me just DAYS before the incident checking in with me and hoping all is well! I replied to his Thursday message on a Sunday, to find out a few days later that he had died on Monday.

Certainly the Universe, aka God, aka Jesus, is teaching me how to face and acknowledge death in a healthy and real way.

And hopefully, this great “lesson” has ended with my own, but only brief enough for me to feel the reality and finality of it, not for me to stay there.

You know the truth though - Encountering death in a real or close way is a catalyst to living more fully.