A slow moving accident
mailto:asullivan00@comcast.net
No, I’m not the first person to feel this way. Plenty of people have come down this road. But hell, I never thought I would end up this way.
Sure that’s what everybody says. That’s how it happens. You never think about life until the doctor gives you the bad news.
I thought it was the flu. I felt weak. I started sweating at night. People do get sick with other things. You don’t automatically panic every time you don’t feel completely right.
You just go get some pills until you get over it.
But how do you get over a death sentence?
Oh sure, when you test positive, it’s not immediately the end of the world. You tell yourself that will the right cocktail and a few good healthy habits, you can beat it.
But can you?
That’s like saying you can spit in Death’s eye, and keep the grim reaper from collecting you – ever.
When you’re a kid, you don’t think about death at all. You look ahead and think sixty or seventy years seems like an eternity.
I actually thought if I lived that long I’d get bored with living
But I came to realize that the closer I came to it, the more I needed to put it off. And when you get early news like I got, you most often feel cheated out of the difference.
I know I believe I ought to get my full share before leaving this place.
That’s what I tell people when they tell me I’m going to snip it off in the middle leaving me with the impression that I was young once, then suddenly old, and never had an opportunity to experience what came between.
They tell me I could live a year or two, maybe as much as ten. But I’ll never squeeze twenty or thirty out of it.
That’s just not in the cards.
Anyone who says they don’t feel cheated is lying.
Or scared.
Or maybe a little pissed off.
I know I keep looking around for someone I can blame.
That’s the part that hurts the most. I’m the one to blame. If I had been just a little more careful, I might still have forty or fifty years to look forward to.
One small mistake.
Sure, I’m going to take care of myself after this. I’m going to fight this thing like I fought for everything else in my life. I really am trying to spit in Death’s eye.
Yet inside, I’m crying. Inside I’m still the kid my mother used to comfort after nightmares. Only this isn’t a nightmare and my mother can’t tell me everything will be all right.
Because it won’t be.
Sometimes, I look at the whole situation as if I’m an accident victim going through everything in slow motion.
I can see the truck steering in my direction in excruciating slowness. But I just can’t manage to leap out of its way.
I watch it coming closer and closer inch by inch, and I know when it gets close enough, when the torture of its approach it too much for me to bear, I’ll wish for it to be over and done with, and yet, it will still take its damned time.