Last week, we found out that one of my son's classmates had an unspeakable tragedy befall him: His mother suddenly passed away.
It wasn't cancer or a heart attack. Instead, his mother died from complications from pneumonia. She'd been sick since November, and she had just took a turn for the worse. With pneumonia. Something I've had. Something my friends have had. Something anyone can get.
The pneumonia itself befell her at what couldn't have been a worse time: Her husband had just had a stroke, and she was busy caring for him while juggling her responsibilities at school and, possibly, at work. While I don't know her personally, I can tell you that with her husband hospitalized and the 24-hour job of caring for her seven-year-old son, her own "flu symptoms" most likely took a back seat to everythingn else in her life. Like many moms, I'm sure she was last on her own list, and I'm sure her resistance was way, way down due to stress and lack of sleep.
That could easily have been me. Even though this wasn't one of my son's closer friends, the shock has still stopped me in my tracks, for one reason alone: This is my worst nightmare: That my children will have to grow up without me.
I am, you might say, overly fearful of my own death. Reason? I don't want to leave my children motherless. After all, NO ONE can parent a child quite like a mother, except, of course, for your own mother (assuming you had a good relationship with yours). And yes, my mother is the next best thing to me. Unfortunately, she is 81 years old, so she's not exactly in a good position to raise my five small boys to manhood.
I can trace this fear back to a single moment in time: The day I tuned in to Discovery Health and watched a documentary on the correlation between how the brain dies and the reports of near-death experiences (NDE). In this documentary, NDEs were reduced to a mere reaction of the lack of oxygen to the brain, as well as the body's release of seratonin and other chemicals to relax the body during its final moments. Oh and that "tunnel" with the light at the end of it? Simply the brain dying, leaving only one view to the eyes: A bright, white light.
Oh. My. Goodness. It totally brought a sick feeling to my stomach. Before this documentary, I was a bit of a New Ager in my thinking, with meditation bringing me "knowing" of my universe, with a believe in reincarnation (thanks to books by Edgar Cayce and "Little Buddha" with Keannu Reeves), among other things. I had that unshakable confidence that transcended my very being in Karma: Yes, let that guy do all of those terrible things and get away with it in this life, because in the end, everyone gets what they deserve.
No more. Instead, every day is filled with danger and fear for me. When I drive, I'm constantly scoping out places I could veer towards in an instant should an out-of-control car head towards me. In dark alleys, I am scoping out every shadow. On the subway and the LIRR, I am particularly conscious of "the gap" as well as any suspicious-looking gang banger that may need to prove himself/herself that day. I read books by Dr. Ornish, warn my children about not only strangers but seemingly nice adults and older children, and drill the boys on what do do in case of an emergency (gunman in the school, attempted molestation by someone they know, crossing the street in the face of a crazy driver, etc). It's awful. I am CONSUMED with my fear of death.
Listen, we all know that life goes on. My company will be sad for a minute, then everyone will go about their business, since no one is irreplacable. My family will cry, my friends will mourn.
But what about my children? How will they retain my values? Who will help them with their schoolwork? Who will teach them how to be kind and generous without people walking all over them? Will they be charitable? Will any of them do volunteer work? Will they get married for the right reasons, and more importantly, who will teach them that it's alright to trust again when someone breaks their heart, as will inevitably happen?
I love being with my husband more than anything. But are we tempting fate by having dinner out together when there is ice on the road? What about when drunk drivers may be coming home from a late-night party? What if we don't make it home?
In an attempt to recoup my former faith. I've kept up with the latest experiments (no, no one who came back from an NDE in the operating room noticed the sign on top of the cabinets that said "Read Me to Prove You Were Really Dead" or some other such nonsense), watched all of the latest documentaries, viewed "Oprah!" when the experts were on. Nothing has even come close to having the kind of effect on me that that fateful video did on that rotten day. Even Slate has gotten om the bandwagon with an article on the mind and whether God exists.
I know what you're going to say: Those with faith in God will always believe. Yes, I know all about that. Truly, I do. The thing is, though, I am a bit of a nerd: I need to see the facts, or at least, an insinuation of the facts. While I belive in a Divine Spirit, I also believe that much of what is written is colored by the beliefs of men, and that we will only truly know how great and glorious our after-death experience will be when we actually get there.
Which leads me to my inner connundrum: If there really isn't anything after we die, then when we get there, we'll never know, because we will simply cease to exist. So, there will never be an answer. Poof! We'll just be gone. No watching over my family when I'm gone. No showing up at one of John Edward's readings and hoping that one of my loved ones is in the audience. No whispering frantically to my children when they are in danger, no using my "psychic energy" to push my child out of the way of danger. There will simply be nothing. I will no longer be me.
We all have very little say in how or when we go, save for diet, exercise and life style. Still, I would like to get back some of my faith in the Afterlife. So, I will continue to keep checking out the programming on Discovery Health, scour the shelves of the local library and read The Science Times on Tuesdays, hoping that someone out there will come up with some shred of evidence in life after death.
Until then, I'll be continuously rattling off my values to my children in the car, at the dinner table, and while we do homework together, just in case...
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