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Gasping for air, I prop my back against the headboard on the bed, and clasp my shins, cradling a racing heart pressed into my knees. A deep cough keeps me wide awake. Drenched in sweat, I cross my legs and twist my spine in a yoga position, relaxing my body, stretching the wing span of my lungs that whistle like a night train whistling through a small town. Breathe in. Breathe out. Just Breathe. I chant silently, trying to stay calm in dire respiratory straits. Please God, I'm not ready to die. I don't want to die. Praying for more time is not a first for me. And I'm certainly not the only one in this world who has asked to be spared at the threshold of death's door. Regrets swirl in a dark cloud above my head. There's an old Italian saying: Breve orazione penetra. God listens to short prayers. I should know... He answered my postcard prayers, healing thoughts of committing suicide when I was a depressed teenager, and later surviving cancer, surpassing statistics printed in medical journals. My doctor, far from god-like, stood at my bedside clutching an antiquated medical bible. He rubbed his bald nub after witnessing a miracle- the will to survive triumphed, a mystery not explained in science. Then again, neither is God's handiwork to a physicist trying to mathematically prove the Big Bang Theory. In the past, I have battled asthma attacks, but tonight, this episode is life threatening. Code Red. Stubborn until the very end, I'm digging my heels, avoiding a man (or woman) in a white lab coat barking instructions in the emergency room. Breathe. Instead, I pant as though I'm giving birth. Life is sadisticly ironic. The breaths of life and death both yearn for a breathing pattern.. Years before, I pushed my children through a birth canal with a long exhale. And, now as I face mortality, I am inhaling, gasping for air, alone in the middle of the night. Death surely is an unavoidable event. I sob at the vision of family and friends gathering at my funeral, glimpsing a montage of photos and videos, celebrating “The End” of my life. The memories of a lifetime strung together like a scrapbook photo album. Sometimes I want to escape peacefully like my mom and dad. Both slipped away from the pain and misery of pyschial ailments. Poof. Gone. Isn't it far easier to let go, then desperately hang on to a barbed rope for dear life? Breathe in. Breathe out. I can't... I'm slipping away. Swiftly, the ghosts of the past visit me in the guest room, away from my husband and children slumbering in their bedrooms.. Under an old oak tree, I kick off a leather patent shoe, and sway carefree on a swing. Close by, my mother paints a pink rose on a canvas held by a rickety wooden easel. The smell of the oil paints float in the air, reminding me that she is near. The screen flickers to a somber scene. Rain pelts the dome of a black umbrella held by our family priest, as he prays over a mahogany casket. I stand next to my father under his elbow, and cry out for my mother. Next, the sky opens a brilliant blue summer vista. Church bells peal as I run down the marble steps with Carl, my husband. A small crowd tosses rose petals and rice in the air. We take cover, slipping inside a white antique Rolls Royce, Just Married on the back window. Carl and I belt the lyrics to The Eagles, Long Run, off key, riding in a topless corvette on the seven-mile bridge, to Key West. A bright light blinds me. I cradle a newborn baby in a pink blanket, my daughter. A boy laughs in the background. Next flash, I stand beside my son; he's blindfolded, wobbling in the backyard. He holds a large bat in his small hands. Pow! Pow! Pow! A Tonka truck pinata cracks open, and a gush of candy bursts to the ground like a waterfall. The screen fades to black. |