IMAGINE THAT

When you find yourself wanting to complain today about all the things you have to do, the work that your co-worker left behind, the kids who need help with homework, the dishes that need to be washed, the errands that need to be done, the Spouse who's getting on your nerves, I want you to stop and imagine this:

Imagine that you have reached over and turned off your alarm clock. It's six a.m., time to get ready for work. You look over into the eyes of your Spouse, the person you've been married to for 34 years, and say "Good morning, babe." You trudge into the bathroom, do your morning thing and head to the garage to jump into your car. Before you leave you think for a moment and tell your spouse, "How's about we eat out tonight?" Sure, your spouse responds, "Where do you want to go?"

"How about that Italian place over on 15th and Dale?"
"Nah," your Spouse says, "let's go to Rosario's, across the street from the post office."
"Okay," you say, "I'll meet you there at six."

Imagine that you kiss goodbye and you head to work. You get to work, park in your usual spot and head to your office. You pass the same people you see every morning at the water cooler. You say hello, think in your head how much valuable company time they're wasting, but instead of making a fuss you head to your own office to get to your own work. You've got a stack of things to attend to. You're healthy -- a runner -- and you eat healthy foods because you know the value of keeping yourself in shape. You reach in your desk drawer for your favorite snack: sunflower seeds.

You munch on your sunflower seeds as you're working. Your secretary comes in, full of cheer, brings you some letters to sign and walks back out. A minute later, somewhere deep in the recesses of your body, your heart begins to do things that you're not even aware of and before you know it, you're out cold, slumped over your desk.

Your secretary comes in, sees you out cold, rushes to call EMS. Somebody, a person standing by that same water cooler, knows CPR and detects that you have no pulse. Suddenly, someone remembers the defibrillator in the office but, to your misfortune, no-one knows how to use it. EMS is called. It takes four to six minutes for them to arrive. Each second that passes is the loss of thousands and thousands of brain cells. The folks at the water cooler, the same ones you passed on the way in, are the same ones struggling to save your life.

You're rushed to the Emergency Room. You have no pulse. They shock you not once, not twice but three times. They give you Epinephrine and Atropine to jump start your heart. They get a rhythm. They put a tube down your throat. You're on a respirator. You're rushed to the ICU.

Imagine that two days later after drugs and antibiotics and I.V. lines and all the things that any prudent trauma center can provide has been provided, a board certified neurologist orders an EEG and a CAT Scan, both of which have declared that you've suffered severe anoxic brain injury. You are in a vegetative state.

Your family has one of two choices: let you live on the respirator or take the respirator away and watch as your breaths become agonal, watch the nurse hang a morphine drip for your comfort; watch as you slowly slip away from this life.

Imagine that the same Spouse who you had planned to meet at six p.m., the person with whom you have shared your bed for 34 years, the person who knows you better than anyone else in the world, the person with whom you have created ANOTHER LIFE, stands at your side, holding your flaccid hand, watching every slow, deep, labored breath suck up into your mouth and pass from your chest like a heavy load. The person you have loved and who has loved you through the Good, The Bad and the In Between, goes home for the very first time to sleep without you.

This is a true story. This is not Hollywood. This is the story of the patient I took care of last night. For over ten years, I have held my finger to the pulse of life and it is scary and amazingly enlightening at the same time. In the trauma/critical care unit every breath is a miracle.

This morning I left work with a knowing that I have never had before that Life is Serious folks. This ain' no dress rehearsal. The degree you are waiting to get "once the kids get a little older," the trip to Paris you want to take "once the bills are caught up," the places you are going to go, "once you get married," the book you're going to write "as soon as you get a chance," ....... IS NOT GUARANTEED. Who's to say that when the kids get older you will even be here? Who's to say that the "husband" will even come? Who's to say that those bills will ever be paid in full and not be replaced by yet another bill?

Look at your life right now and ask yourself, with a seriousness, if today were your last day, is there anything, ANYTHING, you wish you had done? Is there someone you need to call to clear up some petty bullshit that's been festering too long. Is your child's father in need of you to call up and say, "Hey, let's call a truce." What about your child's mother?

Sure, maybe things are over, but showing love and living in peace ain' never out of style.

All I'm saying is this: right now, there is a woman sitting by her husband's side trying to deal with the very fact that LIFE AIN' NO GUARANTEE. She is trying to deal with the hard core fact that the man she has loved for 34 years --- THIRTY FOUR YEARS!!, do you know how long that is? --- will soon pass from this Earth.

Know that you have nothing, not one thing, worthy of complaining about.

Know that you are truly fortunate because you are here, reading this, right now when things could very well be different.

Imagine that. And while you imagine, please say a prayer of indwelling peace for Mrs. M.
I think God will know who you're referring to.

ANGEL