Ages

So it is 2 in the morning and I can't sleep.  I am sort of half awake so pardon my grammar.  I have had some insomnia over the last month or so.  I just can't stop my mind from racing at night.  Tonight I was laying in bed thinking about the last 4 years.  They have been maybe the most life changing 4 years I have experienced.  I think I am a different person then I was prior to 2007.  I sort of grew up.  Or at least grew into a new age of my life.

Before 2007 I was still "the student".  I was out of university, but I still had that frame of mind.  Absorbing the knowledge of others, I suppose.  Taking life a little too seriously.  Assuming I knew my place in this world.  Not bending on my ideals.  Having ideals and having a lot of carefree random fun.  In in April 2007 I lost my first baby to a miscarriage.  I think after that moment I moved into this new Age.

From April 2007 - Present, I have experienced the following:  I bought a home, I became engaged and then married, I got a good job, bought a new car, my traveling became structured vacationing or work travel, I had 2 pregnancies, lost a child, experienced the sensation of not breathing on my own,  learned to live with a pick line, has experienced daily visiting nurses, took in my little brother, was revitalized 2 times after my heart stopped, became a mother, watched my son live in a bubble for 2 months, experienced postpartum depression and severe anxiety attacks, went on disability and maternity leave, lost my grandmother, lost my good job, learned about unemployment,  watched my son take his first step, went to the ER for the first time in my life, went back to the ER, sat in a waiting room while my son was in surgery, watched my son say his first word, lost 3 dear family pets, grew closer to John,  watched my son turn into a little boy, learned more about myself, became confused, learned how insignificant and small I am in this world and excepted it...

I know it is kind of jumbled, and there is not a lot of detail about any one event.  That is what has been going through my mind at night.  Those are some of the thoughts that race through my mind.  Reviewing my recent life.  I think I just needed to write it down.  Life is just a little too much sometimes.  I don't regret a day, but it can be overwhelming.  Just my life, just one life.  How overwhelming is it to think that there are billions of people in this world.  All of them small and insignificant, but with such a huge internal existence.  It really is a strange reality.

My Life and Death Part II -"...for in that sleep of death what dreams may come."

I remember waiting to go into the OR for my DNC.  I remember the nurse telling me I would be out soon.  I remember seeing the nurse and doctors pushing me into the room lifting me off the bed and laying me on the cold operating table.  I thought I was screaming for them to stop.  I thought I was crying.  Thinking back I couldn't have been because even if I was concious, I couldn't breath enough to yell out or cry.  After that I was out.

When I woke up what happened over the next couple of days was the closest thing to a living hell  and heaven I have experienced.  I am not a religious person.  I cannot really put the events into chronological order because time lost all meaning.  I was in a waking dream. Eternity was now and everywhere.  There was no past and no future.  There is peace in that.

I remember first thinking where is my baby and where am I, in that order.  Then I remember taking a breath and nothing happening.  Nothing at all.  People in uniforms quickly reconnected several tubes.  Breath came back, but it was painful. I noticed then that my face was full of tubes to breath for me.  I had to think of every breath.  Every breath brought pain.  My OBGYN came in and told me my heart had stopped and I had died in the OR.  He also told me how riddled with MRSA my body was.  It was in my blood, my lungs, my heart, my brain, my spine and anywhere else that mattered.  During my week in the ICU I would hear nurses outside my room discussing my imminent death between shifts.

I could not cry or mourn my daughter's death, because if I did I would stop breathing.  My days were spent counting breaths and having tests done.  The tests were bad.  The worst is what I believe is called an air gas test?  I don't really know what it is for, but they took a needle and put it in my wrist, and it felt like they were scraping it around in my veins.  I am cringing remembering it.  When ever I was able to sleep I would always be woken up by x-ray technician lifting my onto a cold metal slab.  Th IVs were horrible as well.  I woke up one morning with three in one arm and two in the other.  The worst IVs were those in the hands and wrists.  The worst medicine was the potassium.  They had it pumping into my arm through an IV, it burned.

Every thought that made my cry I had to box up in my mind.  Put it in a box and concentrate on breathing, look at the monitor, look at the numbers, listen to the beeps, wiggle my toes, breath, repeat.   Talk to the nurse, does she have a family, whats her name, why is she here.  Listen to the girl dieing in the next room, she had cancer, she sounded young, a girl, maybe a teen, maybe she doesn't drive yet, maybe she never made love, maybe she has a dog, maybe the dog will miss her... don't cry, put that in a box.

I saw my Grandma Roth.  She was in a blue light, it was not blue, it was another color that is not real but it was her aura.  She was with another woman, a tall strong woman I did not know, she held a blanket.  They wrapped Marlee Kay in the blanket and loved her and loved me.  A tall man in a long coat came.  I did not say goodbye because there was no reason too, Marlee Kay is with me even now in my heart.  Why say goodbye if she is always with you?  I left the light.  The man took me through a series of crumbling structures when we emerged from the final structure there was a tree.  We seemed to be standing in front of one of my childhood homes.  The tree was huge.  We watched a branch crack, pop and fall from the tree and land in its twisted roots.  It twisted into the roots and became a part of them, supporting the life of the tree.  Death was beautiful.

When I woke up I felt sad, peace, trapped, found and then lost again.  I craved death.  I wanted to be a part of the roots tangled with Marlee for eternity.  Loving.  Life changed.  Everything became abstract except the energy of life and the universe.  To die would to be pure again, to be away from what isn't real.  Time, Buildings, Money, Work, School, Food, Clothes, Religion, Politics, Vacation, Location.  Everything lost all meaning for me.  None of it was real.  I am still coping excepting the reality of some of these things, these unnecessary inventions of mankind.  Get over it people!!!!  Love you family!!!  The End!  That is it, there is no more.  You are important in NO other way, but in loving your family(which doesn't mean blood relations) you are the most important person.  You connect with every life you encounter.  Every connection will come back to you on you death bed.  When they say on your death bed life flashes before your eyes, they do not mean the vacation you took to Disney when you were 7.  Life is the connections you make and the love you disperse, so be wise.

John came in, he brought a CD player from Aunt Laurie's house.  It had a Beatles CD in it.  I listened to it.  The nurse liked the Beatles, so she let John stay in the ICU past visiting hours.  He wanted to hug me, but I had to many tubes.  I cannot even imagine his side to this story.  He has told me bits and pieces.  Like I said in my last post.  What happened to us is very difficult to revisit in conversation.

I wanted death, all I had to do was stop trying and I could die.  Stop counting the breaths.  I learned another important lesson in the ICU, instinct.  My instinct trumps my wish to die.  I craved death so bad it was one thing that at one point I could not box in and I started crying, next thing I knew every doctor on the floor was in my room because all of my monitors went off.  Every time I woke up from sleep I was disappointed.  I wanted to return to no pain, peace, no time and Marlee.  I knew John would be okay, I knew it would work out for him eventually if I was gone.  He would mourn, but life goes on.  Life went on for me as well.

I became stronger,  I could stop counting, I went "home"

No Religion - From a note I wrote on Facebook

I wrote this for a note on Facebook.  I think I will post it here.  It really describes my life philosophy.


The gods are the personalities we give to the parts of the world and the universe that we do not understand, but we know are true. We know the sky is above us, the earth is below us, we will all live and die, and we are capable of feeling love, but we don't always understand why. If we personify the earth, the sky, death and love, than we have someone to ask the questions that we cannot, or could not answer...that is if we can ask the right questions. Why does the earth shake? How did the sky come to be above the earth? What happens to our soul after death? Maybe if we can figure out the right questions to ask, the gods or god, we might get an answer. If we do not get an answer maybe the gods believe it is beyond our understanding, that we are not worthy, ready, or just were unable to ask the right question in the right way. As our questions change so do our gods. When our own knowledge answers our own questions about our world, certain gods disappear, merge together, or loose there purpose. We defeat the gods and religion with knowledge. In the garden of Eden the poison in the fruit was knowledge. Religion and the leaders and founders of religions demonize knowledge in fear of loosing control of there believers. The more we understand the less relevant religion is in our lives and the more we have to justify believing. There are still unanswered questions, and there will probably always be unanswered questions. Personally I do not think we need answers to all the questions. I think we all would be better off excepting we may never have all the answers and we are insignificant in the universe.
I have always internally fought the idea of religion and gods, but as a child questioned my “disobedience” to our culture, despite being raised with no particular religion or belief. I do not question anymore. I have been dead twice. My experience with death, for me, has justified my lack of belief and my lack of religion.
I am at peace with my insignificance in this world. I see its beauty everyday in the sky in the trees in my love for Lennon and for John. That is enough for me. The love and beauty that surround me everyday is enough to fill my heart. I do not need a god or a religion to tell me I am important, or life is important, or death is important. In the grand scheme of the universe I am not important, but I am happy and I love. That is enough for me.