Life and Death

We Were Soldiers Soundtrack with Lyrics

Mansions of The Lord

There was blood in the toilet accompanied by a significant pain in my belly. It wasn’t the first time the blood had been there but it was the first time the pain was severe enough to concern me.

I cleaned myself up and wandered to the couch.

For a few moments I struggled to find a position that was comfortable and wondered if this was something to be genuinely worried.  I propped my head up with a pillow and closed my eyes and slowed my breathing down.

And then I wondered about whether it was time to call the doctor or not.

Medical History

Years of GI distress had made it harder to discern when to be concerned about it being serious and when it was just one of those days.

I tried to figure out what I had eaten. Dairy could do me in and so could a number of other things, like spinach or sesame seeds. Maybe I had eaten something, one of those things. Maybe it was nothing more than the joy of a dysfunctional digestive system.

But I couldn’t think of anything.

Dysfunctional or not the overall status of my digestive system seemed to have improved. There were occasional problems but I could almost always attribute it to food or stress.

What Happens If Something Is Really Wrong With Me?

This time was different in more than a few ways. This time was different because it was the first time I wondered if maybe there was a terminal illness attached to this. I had never considered that before. It was always just an irritation, a thing that sometimes made me change or adjust plans, but never life threatening.

Can’t say for certain what made me start thinking about this but I did. I remembered a story someone I knew had told me about his bout with Colon Cancer. I remembered bits and pieces, just enough for my mind to make the leap to maybe this is similar.

Enough for me to start wondering what happens if I have something serious and I need to really fight to live. What happens if I have to prepare to say goodbye.

What do I do then.

How Do I Want To Live and How Do I Want To Die?

Nature called and I ran back to the bathroom. I didn’t have to look, I knew that there was going to be some blood again. I knew and I remembered hearing that Elvis died on the toilet.

That was something I really didn’t want. Not because of a lack of dignity but because I didn’t want people to remember me that way. I didn’t want the last thing my family saw to be the dead man on the toilet, assuming I didn’t fall off.

Time passed and I staggered to the bedroom and flopped on the bed.

The question of what I wanted to do kept tugging at me.

I didn’t know if I was seriously ill and I did my best not to jump to conclusions. But the truth was I was still in a lot of pain and couldn’t remember it ever feeling like that.

And that is when I started thinking about how I wanted to live. I had always said that when I die I want to die knowing I had done all that I could to live a life of joy and happiness.

I wanted to go knowing that I had made a difference and that I had helped make the world a better place.

But I wanted to make sure I had done some other things, experienced things I hadn’t ever done before. I decided that it would be ok to be selfish and selfless.

What If

I try not to live a life of “what if” this and “what if that.”

But I am a writer with a graphic imagination and I see/hear stories wherever I go.

And it was hard not to look back and think of friends who have died. There have been enough to make me wonder about how it all works.  I helped shovel dirt onto their caskets and was a mourner and witness to other mourners.

What if things were cut short. Would I have done enough. Would I have lived enough.

The story/movie of my children’s lives will end after I am gone. I won’t be there to see it all. That is normal. That is natural.

But what about the others? What about those who mean most to me outside of family?

Will I have made it clear to them how important they are? Will they know how much I loved and appreciated them or will these things merely be things a man once thought about and never shared.

Sometimes you think about these questions on your own and sometimes you forget only to be reminded later on.

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”

“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

I looked down and saw blood in the toilet and felt the anger inside me rising.  I was at that place where it was only going to take one thing to bring out in an explosive and destructive manner.

It is a piece of me I keep hidden from virtually everyone because it rarely adds value to my life and frankly that sort of raw emotion leaves me feeling far too naked.

During the rare moments when he comes out I find myself reveling in the moment, the rush of adrenaline and the “I don’t give a fuck” attitude are fun, but rarely helpful.

That boy I once was didn’t have responsibilities so it didn’t matter what he did because his actions only helped or hurt me.

That Was Then

Wedding Song– Bob Dylan
Positively 4th Street– Bob Dylan
Old Alabama– Braid Paisley
Feel Like Making Love– Bad Company

Went to bad last night feeling a bit edgy and by the time I had woken up the edge was razor sharp and I wanted to let loose. Didn’t remember my dreams but could tell they had served as a whetstone for the feeling.

It was exacerbated by the sounds of some jackass screaming obscenities. Not how I want to wake up, especially on a Sunday morning.

Tried to fall back asleep and when slumber wouldn’t come I glared at the wall and thought about whether the fool below would appreciate two hundred some pounds of angry  Jack sharing his thoughts and then something happened.

The anger just faded away.

Don’t know why, but it just disappeared. Rolled out of bed, took a quick shower and walked down the street to grab some groceries and breakfast.

The Most Important Part Of Blogging

If you are one of the scanners that subhead probably grabbed your attention and now you are wondering where I am going with this. Well, I wrote Don’t Regret Not Living Your Life about a year ago and now it is time to look back.

It is time to look back and see what sort of progress has been made. Time to use the blog as a chronicle of life. Time to tie in the Emerson quotes from above with this post and provide an introduction to one of my favorite videos.

I love the video below because it chronicles life and the important moments. I love it because I use it as a reminder about what is important and why I try be intentional and purposeful in what I do.

Sometimes I fall short, but I can live with that because I see the effort I make to improve things. I see the effort to make changes. The moments in my life that I am least proud of are usually those where something happened and I didn’t do anything.

There aren’t many of those, but I dislike those far more than the ones where I made bad choices because at least I made a choice.

I believe in action and decision.

Action And Decision

Who I am as a person and a father are two different people, yet the same.

The goal is to show my children that life is meant to be lived and that we experience a variety of moments. The people that live are those that don’t just let things happen. They are active in trying to take control of their destiny and they do what they can to be the captain of their ship.

Ask me to share something I am proud of and I will tell you that when life got hard I didn’t lie down and let it overwhelm me. I found a way to stand back up and move forward. I found a way.

It might not be the best way, but it is my way and I own it.

I don’t know when I am going to die, but dammit whenever that day comes, tomorrow or a thousand years from now my children and those I care about will know I tried to live and I didn’t just pass the days.

What about you?