“Why I Get Love When Death Is Imminent”

Somebody’s story, somewhere. It goes like this…

You received that message to come back. Your test results warranted a phone call from your doctor.

The closed door allows the murmurs of your discussion to be heard by an outside audience that doesn’t even care to hear the contents.

Minutes go by that feel like hours to you, to me, to someone.

The door finally swings open, and you’re too in shock to cry. The words ring in your head as you have little control over your own voice anymore. It molds it like clay on a wheel.

“Terminally-ill. A few months to a year.”

You mirror the cadence of your physician, who has delivered this news, how many times; she doesn’t quite remember anymore.

The drive home is lonely as this cold gray paints your mind, my mind, someone’s mind, as they go into autopilot.

You ponder and debate whether you should tell anyone. If you should just let your death be a surprise. It is yours after all.

It saves the tears and heartbreak and the agony that ensues after, you think.

You sit in the car for awhile working up the courage to enter that house or apartment for what very well could be the last few times. Upon entering, you stumble upon your spouse. You and they have been having issues for some time now; therapy seems rather unproductive. They ask that painful question.

“How’d it go?”

They are consumed in their mundane rituals of life; they don’t even afford you the focus of their gaze. You might have crumbled if they did anyway.

You break the dialogue with your silence, my silence, somebody’s silence. They look at you as you stare at your shoes. You break the news to them as tears fill their eyes. Your spouse runs to you as you hold each other tight like high school seniors going to two different colleges. The wrinkles of life didn’t deter both of you from peeling back the years in this moment. I think they forced a breakthrough in you, as the water droplets roll from your eye gates.

Not because you are dying. But because it’s been so long since you and they, I and they, somebody and someone held each other in intimacy that wasn’t a ritual.

You tell others and watch as your world tries to overcompensate for the colorlessness of death with the yellow hues of generosity and kindness.

That boss you never got along with gives you a pat on the back, calls you “bud” every chance they get.

Old friends that Father Time caused them to forget you, me, somebody, all of a sudden can recall the greatest memories.

That estranged parent, the one who is conscious of your failures as a man, as a woman, as an adult, as a citizen, sees personal dogma as just thoughts swimming in brain matter. All of a sudden, they are so kind, so tender with you.

And that spouse, you once slept back to back. Every night, you and they, I and they, somebody and someone, let the coldness of life create a wall between you. Now, ever since the news broke, they hold you tight in the ink blue paint of nightfall. Their fingerprints try to memorize the patterns of your heartbeat and the temperature of your body.

Every morning you arise is a blessing.

Every room you walk into feels like a celebration.

Every tearful apology feels long overdue.

And suddenly, as the days pass since the moment you heard that news, you become scared.

You have been the bucket people have crapped in. The person who was never good enough or smart enough, always the sparring partner of a champion of someone else’s desires. Never the one given the title shot. And this one piece of news catapulted you into so many good graces.

What if this was a mistake?

What if the PA or the nurse or whoever switched the files? What if you weren’t dying? All of that might go away. You may have to return to being the typical butt of jokes, the fuel for flammable, angry eyes. You, me, somebody somewhere doesn’t want this purgatory of human decency to end. It’s too addictive for someone like you.

That day comes, as you fill the casket in your best suit. The church is filled with people you may have known but forgot you.

People who may have never known you, your death reminded them of the smile you paid them.

People who came to know you as the service transpired.

People who knew you all along and treated you as if they were ashamed to.

All who fill the structure sing the same lyrics of praise.

“You were a good person”

“Why did you have to go so soon?”

“They should have treated you better”

“I hope you didn’t die thinking they hated you.”

“Maybe things could have been different.”

“They were lucky to have known you.”

What is it about death that gives the loveless a taste of the trappings of love?

Why do we, as a culture, run amok across this world, complaining of how our past, our culture, our upbringing robbed us of the understanding of how love functions, then all of a sudden, when the reaper’s stallion can be heard trotting on our block, we tap into what should have been our default setting.

We become wiser with our words.

We prioritize our battles.

We become more vulnerable and transparent.

We become guilty of our immaturity, which we wrap in bacon-flavored dogma.

We taste the words: “I’m sorry.”

We hug more.

We cry more and abandon our misinterpretation of stoicism.

We count the number of trees that make up our morning commute.

We sit and swish that coffee/tea/hot chocolate in our mouths from the deli to capture that hint of cinnamon. We never noticed, despite ordering and paying for that same cup every week for years.

Death does something to us. Our technology, our made-up titles, our currencies that fluctuate, make us believe we are the gods our ancestors worship. But then, when our demise is imminent, we become rather self-conscious.

Love even if it’s neglected, returns to the conversation because in the remaining moments, whether it is you, the person whose essence is ending, or the person giving, a mutual contract is signed in tears. This crappy feeling of loss can only be partially soothed by the thing we procrastinated in giving/recieving.

This little thing called love.