Not My Turn To Go

The brightness of the room and their flurry of sudden activity around him only seemed to heighten his sense of well being. Instead of the fear he should have felt he knew calm like he had not experienced before as he watched the dropping figures and bleeps and blips on the screen above his head. He could see the tear filled frantic faces of loved ones crammed together in the hallway of the ER and he wanted to tell them don’t worry that there was no pain only calm.

A nurse was yelling in his ear but he couldn’t make out what it was she said but he smiled at her at least it felt like he had smiled at her. Needles were being shoved into both arms and the light seemed to glow off the plastic bags of clear fluid they were feeding into his veins. White doctor’s coats floated in and out among the colorful uniforms of the nurses like Halloween ghosts on a fall night. He closed his eyes and let the catacombs of noise wash over him like a blanket till he felt his mind shutting down or going into a state of grace that he never thought he deserved.

His memories, the memories of his life as a father, brother, husband and friend, flooded through his last thoughts like poetry from a poet. He recalled the happy times, the loving times, times of children, times of the joy of living and yet the bad, the sad and the ugly seemed to be kept at bay by some invisible force field. He saw no light at the end of a tunnel saw no angels with wings spread to greet him and heard not a heavenly harp but he did feel a presence or a feeling of serenity like none he had ever felt before.

His mind wanted him to surrender to this flow and let whatever was out there possess him and comfort him and allow him the rest he so craved but his heart…oh his heart. The unused love in his heart refused to let him go and began calling to him once more in the giggles and laughter of his granddaughters, in the pleading of his daughters and the need of his wife and all the friends he knew and cared so deeply for as well. He opened his eyes and looked up to see the blood pressure numbers gradually increasing to a normal level, he looked into the eyes of doctors and nurses and saw the strained relief wash over them and knew that this was not going to be his good bye after all and weakly turning towards his family he smiled.