don't fear the Reaper

My breathing gets better every day (since the blog posts aren't read in chronological order, I will recap by saying that I have been struggling with serious asthma for nearly a year, necessitating two courses of prednisone (which I truly hate), tinkering around with various meds, reducing exposure to my triggers: cigarette smoke (yes, God, I'm sorry I was a cigarette smoker, 'K? Now cool it!), perfume, and incense, among other things, and entirely changing my diet. I'm now off gluten for good--and it has actually done a great deal for my health. I truly can't tell what it is, but keeping a HEPA filter in my room when I sleep, changing my diet, and getting my meds tinkered with have all helped. I can breathe. I no longer feel I am on the verge of drowning while surrounded by air. And that is good.

At the tail end of my health crisis, last week I had my most frightening moment as a teacher. My class and I were near the end of the session; one of my students was sharing from a novel she'd brought in--I'm teaching a creative writing course this semester and each student is to present a short excerpt of writing from a favorite author. As my student was reading (a really terrific selection of work, actually), the door opened (we have a pesky door that drives me up the wall--it slams hard-shut without provocation). I looked up to see a tall person enter the classroom; he was quite literally dressed as the Grim Reaper, in a long red velvet cape with a hood that fully concealed his face. One hand held a crudely made scythe; the other was concealed under his cape.

I waited to see if he would say anything, but he just stood there silently, creepily walking towards me a little even after I said, "May I help you?" What I will never forget are my students, their eyes wide as saucers and full of fear, looking from the Grim Reaper to me and back again. I felt terrible that they had been frightened so badly.

Was I concerned, in this era of school shootings? Yes, absolutely. I had to begin assess in seconds whether this person was a threat--he never spoke, identified why he was there, unmasked himself, or made any gesture to show he was benign. He was between me and the classroom phone also. I never caught the remotest glimpse of his face. At some point, I fell into that terrible abyss of unknowing what was going to happen next--but I felt to be in a bubble of deep and amazing calm and an almost Zen-like clarity of mind. I accepted that perhaps he had a gun or other weapon, that I could be shot or otherwise harmed, that my life could very well be about to end, and the only sadness I had was that it would happen in front of my students and traumatize them. I didn't sense he was after anyone else given his facing-and-moving towards me. I knew if he got closer he would have a chair slammed into his head by me, that I would do anything to make sure my students were okay, first, and then me. But I wasn't afraid--not til after class was over and jokes were made about the Grim Writer and the Zodiac killer. Turns out the Reaper simply and silently turned and left the classroom; a few minutes later, someone ran into the room looking for him, as he was part of a schoolwide program on drunk driving (but of course this hadn't been announced to many of the students at my university, and certainly not me and my class).

I had a severe stress reaction later, starting at lunch, when I began shaking, and the incident activated my PTSD from various incidents in my life, producing insomnia, nightmares, and restless sleep. But the silver lining is this: I came realized that, if it ever did happen that my life might end, I have had a most glorious fifty years on this planet. In a moment of complete uncertainty, I accepted whatever might happen to me with simply--acceptance. And that is comforting, in a strange way--though I am glad it all turned out relatively well, and that the Grim Reaper decided this time to slip away and down the hall.