I had one, if not the worst day of my life, last Saturday. I woke up feeling down and out physically and mentally. That day, I thought to myself, if there is a good day to embrace death, that would be it. I am always affected either physically or mentally but not both at the same with such intensity.
I cry. That is what I do when I feel drained, and it helped a little. Then, I thought to call my partner and friends, ask them how they are, and tell them I am here if they need anything. That is the other thing that helps me, having other people wish me well and tell me they love me.
I had a long talk with one of my friends.
She relocated to another county, and we do not see each other a lot or speak often. But when we do, we do talk deep, and that is just what happened. I told her what I was feeling. She read me some dreams of hers that she had earlier this year which slowly were coming true. She also read me a poem she wrote while broken. It touched my heart.
She told me to write too, that there is importance in doing that, makes things real. Those we are yet to experience, those we want to release, those we feel. It makes all the untouchables alive.
I felt better after that talk and decided to see another of my friends.
We have not spoken for a year, and she moved out quite close to where we are now. I left the house, ready to be a shoulder to another person I felt needed me. I forgot I was also in pain.
When we met, she did not acknowledge me. She turned around fast and asked me to hurry so that we would reach her house quickly. That was my first red flag that she was unwell. She did not look me in the eye. I hurried to her so we would reach the house quickly and have a break. I was tired.
On my way up the stairs, I started feeling dizzy. I bent to calm down and let the air blow me down. I felt like fainting, but I did not dare. It was my first visit to her home, and I was there to be a shoulder to lean on and not the one needing help.
On the last flight, I could barely walk. I saw death.
She was worried, so I told her I was fine and just needed some water. I collapsed as I entered her house, and she told me we needed to go out to get food, but I could not get up. She did not have a cup to give me water, and when I pleaded with her to use the washroom, she did not want me in it. She suggested I use the one at the restaurant we were going to, but I was done for, physically.
She finally allowed me in her washroom and kept checking in, urging me to finish quickly. There I was, tired, broken, and unable to lift myself. I crawled out of that house and lay on the verandah. I hated inconveniencing her as I had.
But I could not help it. I had never felt anything like this.
I was so weak and wondering why I had come to help someone else when I was low on the help myself. Two security guards had to carry me downstairs to take me to the clinic. All the while, I was feeling so horrible and apologizing to her for being in that situation.
When we reached outside, it was something else. I could not see clearly. My vision was getting faint. As much as I tried to squint, I failed to make out shapes of buildings and people well. Surfaces looked bright and shiny and extra white, and I knew that was it. I was going to die. I had wanted to be dead that early morning, and it was coming true.
I had always thought the white flashing before eyes before death was sharp and strong that that was the only thing I would see, but it was not.
I had thought my life would flash before my eyes, but it did not. I was present, there at that time, afraid more than ever. When all I thought was that I would embrace this thing called death, I was horrified. There was nothing else I thought about that moment than the fact I wanted to not go through what I was going through at the moment. Not my past, mistakes, dreams, or anything I wanted, just that I wanted to be alive, and at that moment, I needed to be.
There were no tears. My breath was fast-paced, and the bright shapes of people and buildings were hurting my eyes. But most of all, my pre-perceived embrace of dying in this near-death experience confirmed to me that I indeed do not want to die. I did not want to die even though I felt like I did not want to live.
The white light is paralyzing fear, and death is frightening.
It is the most frightening thing I have ever had to go through. I am glad I went through it. It made me realize one thing, the one thing I maybe need desperately right now. I don’t want to die.
There are many days nowadays I wake up and cannot get out of bed. I am just tired and not because I have done anything. I am just tired of existing. The affirmations do not work, but there is a point I get up and do what I need to do and find the energy to go on.
I think deep inside us, there is a drive we do not know about.
A drive, well hidden, that jolts us back on the path we walk. And believing in that even when we cannot trace it, we get to the point where we can continue in our journey again. We do not need to search for it. It is there deep within and will take us where we need to go, eventually.
