The day my heart stopped working was so ordinary it almost makes me laugh. I’ve recounted the story many times to my friends and doctors, and it always strikes me how different it was compared to how I expected it feel. No dramatic stabbing pains, no shocked cry of anguish. I didn’t even clutch my chest. I just didn’t feel well, and then I began to sweat profusely, and my skin turned an ashy grey. At the time I didn’t know half of my heart had stopped receiving blood, that I was in fact spiraling towards death. But a small voice in my head knew and told me to get to the hospital just as fast as I could. And so I did, and in turn they saved my life.
At the hospital I was whisked from the reception desk in the E.R. to a room where I was quickly hooked up to a heart monitor, the sticky rectangular pads pushed into my hairy chest and arms and I could only think about how it would sting to pull those off. The EKG spat out a tape, the doctor examined it and said, “You did the right thing coming in, we’re going to save your life today.” I blinked a few times at that, and then I was stripping off my clothes and a nurse was shaving my arm and thigh. Another doctor put a big heavy brick of a machine between my legs as I lay down on the gurney and told me it would restart my heart on the way to the operating room. I remember mumbling, “oh good”. It all went by so fast. I.V. tubes in, X-ray of my heart going in real time, the stinging bite of the catheter going into my wrist and snaking up to my heart. And then… it was done. As they wheeled me out of the room I belatedly called back, “Thank you for saving my life”. Tears laving my face. Since that day, my spirit has been troubled. I’ve been grouchy and short tempered. My wife at times has been angry and distant, and behind all of that was the cold incontrovertible fact that I nearly died.
I. Nearly. Died.
The the spectre of death is not so far from any of us, at anytime. And while philosophically I’ve always known and embraced that, touching it with my hands, having it come close and sit at my bedside has been something else all together. I have never feared death, in some ways it has been a constant companion to me since I was a child. I watched my eldest brother die from a gunshot wound. I held my mother’s hand when she died from complications of her Parkinson’s disease. I sat close to my father and stroked his brow while he took his last breaths. And I satvigil for my last remaining brother throughout the bitter night that cancer stole him from me. And now I look at the possibility of death, not through the lens of a care giver, son or brother, but from my own eyes. From the eyes of a husband and a father. And believe it or not, that makes a very big difference indeed.
In most ways, I am unchanged. I don’t feel that I’ve received a miraculous transfiguration like Scrooge, no redemptive stroke of revelation. In fact in many ways I’ve been a worse version of myself since it happened. The thought occurs to me that the person I am, the good and the bad, I have built bit by bit over the course of my lifetime. The finer qualities, the values, the flaws and the regrets are all the hallmarks of my life’s labor. And there is a certain acceptance for me that comes with that realization.
The shame I’ve felt for my failures and short comings, the pride and satisfaction for the things I’ve done well, the bitter anger and despair for wrongs done to me and by me. They are all part of the thing that I’ve made of my life. And that knowing paired with a first hand view of how quickly that life can end has given me some perspective.
Now, more than ever, I look to be present, to be mindful of where I am. To take the petty angers and peeves and let them dissolve and instead find more gentleness in my heart. I try to emphasize the things I like about this person I’ve built, and let go of the things I hate. I’d like to have a more truthful view in my self-awareness and let the humility that comes with it be an aide to let me walk upright, instead of a weight to bow my head. At the end of it all, I have come to accept that I am a flawed man, and in those flaws lies the essential beauty of being human. There is a deep well of empathy that can be tapped when we extend that insight not only to ourselves, but to all of those around us. It brings us to that inner singularity of understanding that wedeserve and need love. Not just as a person, but as a community, and a race. In these days where hatred and greed are raging, and the brand of being “Other”, is on us all from someone’s perspective, I believe it is essential to let love in.
You deserve it. We all need it.
And somehow, perhaps it will allow us to find our way home. A good friend once told me that essentially we are all just walking each other home in the dark. Until we see those soft lights of the windows of home, we can hold hands and lend each other our strength and comfort in this long dark night. And I hold that to be true.
Jonathan Warner is a student of leadership, emotional intelligence, and the mysteries of interactive entertainment and with his wife and children he walks the path.