That other shoe.
We got one of those dreaded phone calls yesterday. latunda’s grandmother collapsed at breakfast and has been unconscious ever since. They’ve put her into a cryo-state that (hopefully) will keep her brain from swelling so much it kills her or puts her into a coma. Of course, there’s the possibility that as they warm her up today she could go into a coma or die.
So I put latunda on a plane this morning. M and I are staying here because we can’t afford plane tickets for all of us.
I’ve dealt with family emergencies before. You pick up and move on because if you don’t the world will leave you behind. Yesterday, though, something very strange happened, and I’m not sure what to think of it.
When I was a medic, I dealt with death a lot. Danced, even. We have a strange relationship, death and I. Maybe an understanding. It is what it is and I have no wonder or fear of it. I’ve had a shotgun shoved in my face, then had to try to resuscitate the guy holding it because the cops shot him over my head. I’ve understood that sometimes it’s ok to not run the code even when it’s a baby. I’ve seen the entire spectrum of peace and anguish that comes along with death’s arrival.
But yesterday I felt it. Mortality. A very stealthy creep that covers your mind with an odd disassociation that turns the world into an intangible thing that you might or might not get to touch. Spectral. Full of wonder and life. At that very moment (why do these things always happen to me when I’m driving?) I knew that my last dance with death would happen. Someday.
But it’s going to happen on my terms, which means not for a very long time yet. Death has no friends, nor is it fair, but it remembers.
(Where did I put my invisibility cloak?)