Closing Chapter

Faithful readers, I believe I am seeing my dying process on the horizon--hopefully a far one, but today it seems very near. 

I have been diagnosed with three very serious concurrent heart conditions, two of which could be fatal with little or no warning. One reason I am alive right now is because I have taken very good care of myself over the last couple of decades. I believe, however, that my daughter's death literally broke my heart. Right now I am lucky to be alive, for many reasons, but everyone's luck runs out eventually.

My heart conditions are congenital and were not detected in full until I ended up in the hospital in August 2023 with an evolving heart attack. A coronary angiogram at the time showed that I have zero plaque in my coronary arteries, something greatly in my favor. I have a good cardiologist and his staff is wonderful. However, this new twilight zone carries with it the sense that I have become a near-transparent ghost on the shore of the Styx. Everything feels grey in the Cardiology medical office. It does not seem like a place of healing. My heart medications, though manageable, are a reminder that something has gone terribly wrong.

It's true that no one can ever predict one's natural lifespan. My great-grandmother Maria lived most of her life with one of my conditions and passed away at 98--perhaps later, as it was rumored she shaved a couple of years off her age! A certain vanity runs in the family. It's possible I can stabilize, and I hold to that belief. The worsening of my heart problems has greatly raised the bar for a stroke or heart attack. I muse that I would rather have a heart attack and keep my mental functioning, even with the debility (which could be overcome) and PTSD afterwards. It would be merciful after all I have gone through if I just dropped like a stone and popped straightaway into the afterlife. I'm starting to have more friends and family over there than here: this is to be expected as one ages. It would be a relief to just succumb to this process. But I have vowed to stay here for as long as I can, to make sure all of my grandchildren are safe.

I am not afraid of death and am slowly beginning to be at peace with my fate. Fearful that my loved ones will forget to grant my dying wish--to receive the Last Rites, the final sacrament of my childhood faith--I will be asking the local priest for it soon. It has evolved from a before-death ritual to a healing, life affirming ritual, so I feel it's appropriate.

A stroke terrifies me: to lose my language, my ability to walk, to move freely: tempting to ask one of my doctor or nurse friends well in advance if they would be willing to load up a syringe of morphine if it happens and send me packing. But how can I ask another human being to do that for me? It is unconscionable. I will not willingly choose my own death and leave that as both my legacy and in the DNA of future generations. I will let the tide go out on its own.

I have not done everything as a writer (so far, at least) that I wanted to do in this life, and I am at peace with that. I did more than some, less than others, and also have come to see that the narcissism, the competition, the disappointment over a perceived lack of recognition, the warring between writers, the haves vs. the perceived have-nots: these are mirages. I think it's a worthy path to pursue the mirage and reap whatever you can from it. But it's still a mirage.

What matters is the act of creation: so what if you reach three people or three million with your writing? So what if your magnum opus unexpectedly appears on the cheap-paperback stand in a 7/11 (yes, they had those back then) as one of my professors in college did? Heck, that's more than many writers get: who cares if someone picks up a cherry Slurpee along with your magnum opus? My first dance performance with my former troupe was between the salad bar and the extra-seating area in a Round Table pizza place in San Jose (the owners, curiously, hosted bellydance shows monthly). It was a blast, and a very treasured memory.

I hope the afterlife, when I get there, is what I have heard described in near-death experiences. I believe I have seen it before, in dreams and my own NDEs. I hope to know everything about the universe, the historical events of this world which were never recorded, to meet up with my relatives and all the people who loved me and whom I loved in return. If there is indeed nothing and the jig is up when my body ceases to function--well, I won't know that. I'll just go out like a candle. That is the serenity of accepting mortality, though it's something I have to work for over and over these days.

The Bhagavad-Gita says that "The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed." I believe this.

Until that time comes, I do hope to be back here in this small corner of the Internet, hopefully to say I am doing better. I know I will keep writing until I physically and mentally cannot. As I said at the beginning of this entry, I see my death on the horizon; perhaps it will wait, perhaps not. But the culmination of the positive things I have done in this life concentrate to one point now: I walked on this earth for a few decades, and soon I will be gone. And this is what is. My only sorrow is that for some, my death will bring about grief and pain. I wish there was some way not to have that happen.

I hope those who come here, those who knew me when, and those who know me now. remember me as a person who was wholly and completely human. I made terrible mistakes and have tried, to the best of my ability, to remedy and make amends for them. I was at war with myself most of my life, and I pulled people into that war. That is my greatest regret. I hope that I made up my transgressions. And I hope at least some people think of the good things I have done during this gift of an incarnation.

Let's hope I am back to write more, but if not: Om shanti. Blessed Be. And so it is. Amen.