What Dying Can Teach Us About Living
Davide Ragusa. Unsplash
Mine were TWINS. Twelve ounces.
White once upon a time, now gray in most places, the acrylic paint scratched off after years of wear and tear.
As I slipped my hand into the glove and fastened the velcro strap, a switch in my brain clicked on…
Something’s wrong.
I pushed the thought from my mind and strapped on the right one.
“Uno, dos, atras, dos,” my trainer said, holding the focus mitts up for me to hit.
One, two, slip, two.
We usually ran this simple combo a few times with a couple of others to warm up.
This first round was three minutes and a piece of cake.
Usually.
For some reason, 30 seconds in today, I’m gassed.
Not like you’ve hit a hard workout type of exhausted.
This is different.
This is like my body is working against me.
Like it doesn’t want me moving.
I bend over and put my hands on my knees, waving my coach off,
“Lo siento hermano, dame un segundo.”
Sorry brother, give me a second.
I can’t do it. I’ve never felt this tired, but I need to get horizontal. Fast.
I tell him I’m sorry for wasting his time, but I have to cancel our class.
Coach tells me not to worry about payment for the day, and I lug my ass home.
I enter my apartment and drop my keys in the cup on the kitchen counter.
I shove my backpack and coat off the couch. I don’t have the energy to hang them up.
I haven’t even taken my shoes off yet, and I’m already drifting into dreamland.
What is up with me today?
I fall into an unsettled state of sleep.
—
If you’ve never almost died, here’s what it’s like:
1 — More normal than you think.
2 — Super helpful in figuring out your priorities. Quickly.
The first time I almost died was when I ruptured my spleen in a 6th-grade skiing accident (shout out Greek Peak).
The second time was last year.
I woke up from the nap that day after boxing practice and felt strange enough that I thought going to the hospital might be a good idea.
I’d later learn I had internal bleeding from taking a pill (it was Alka Seltzer, OK, chill. And no, it wasn’t in Ibiza).
Because of a weird X-linked genetic blood disorder (thanks, ma), the active ingredients ended up causing a minor hemorrhaging in my small intestine that I only found out three days later (whoops).
(For all the gory details you can find a breakdown I did on my YT channel)
But if you haven’t almost died…
I highly recommend it.
Now that I’ve spent two of my nine lives, I’m treating the seven I have left with more care (we get nine, too, right?).
I recently heard an interview with Alua Arthur (a death doula) on Dan Harris’ Ten Percent Happier podcast, and it got me thinking about the power of mortality.
Here are my top takeaways:
1 — Nothing matters (or very little).
I talk about this idea a lot. It sounds nihilistic (and, in some ways, it is) but also incredibly liberating.
When it’s all on the line…almost nothing matters…except for those we love.
I was drifting through different states of consciousness, bleeding out in the hospital bed.
All I could think was:
A — Why is it so cold?
B — I’m going to miss my family.
All my unachieved dreams and ideas I had about my life vanished entirely.
I felt oddly grateful for my 30 years and an overwhelming surge of love for my mom, dad, and big brother.
That was it. Black and white.
I wasn’t worried about posting on social, how I would become the next Drake, my five-year plan…none of it.
We give credence to ideas, beliefs, and goals that are often meaningless in the end.
I don’t say that as an excuse to stop showering and give up on ambitions (please don’t) but to hopefully act as a reminder that what’s truly important is usually right in front of us.
And we sacrifice those precious relationships for everything else that isn’t.
2 — If you aren’t dying, spend time with those who are.
When I said it was more normal than you think, I didn’t say it to disparage the value of your existence.
It’s just that when you’re in the emergency room or intensive care wing, people are dying all around you.
We don’t realize it (unless you work in hospitals), but people are dying constantly.
There’s actually nothing strange about it.
I shared a room with two other people, and our only separation was a curtain.
They both passed while I was there.
And while I had hoped there might be angels with little trumpets playing Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise while I moved on to the spirit realm.
It was oddly…ordinary.
So this is how it ends, I thought to myself.
In a gown decorated with tiny trees, my bare ass exposed for all.
I wasn’t shooting zombies from a helicopter or holding onto a cliff edge with a few fingers and saved at the last minute.
One Alka Seltzer pill was enough to do me in.
But I made it (obviously), and I felt like a zillion bucks for the next few weeks.
Then about a month later, when I was on my own two feet again, it was eerie how quickly my life went back to normal.
If we don’t think about death, or if it’s not in front of us, it’s easy to forget.
Listening to this death doula got me reflecting on my experience and how powerful it is to talk to folks close to the end.
Our elderly have gems we can appreciate and implement.
I need to spend more time with them.
3 — Don’t wait to say what you need to say.
If we’re lucky, we get to choose how and when we die.
That’s not always the case.
We never know when it’s our time to go.
There are very few feelings as painful as regret.
To have someone leave before you can clear the air or tell them you love them is difficult to fathom.
What the doula said, and I thought was interesting, was — don’t forgive someone if you don’t mean it.
Just because it’s the end of life doesn’t mean it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card for all the terrible behavior.
BUT…it can be a good motivator to have those conversations if they need to be had.
4 — I don’t want to live forever.
Eternal life is, in fact, THE most painful form of torture.
Because you have to experience those you love dying over and over.
It’s precisely because of death that life has so much meaning.
Who and what you spend time on is valuable only because it has an end.
So no… I’m not available this Saturday for clubbing.
I have a dying collection of plants that need tending.
Thanks.
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