After Life (What Will You See)

The incessant beep woke me up from that final sleep. The rest that many people pray for but aren’t really sure exists. Let me just say…I’m glad I woke up from that rest. While I was lying there fighting for my life, struggling to breathe past the death that forced its breath in my rebellious body I didn’t see my life flash before my eyes. I saw the life after my death and it wasn’t heaven or hell, it was sadness. Indescribable sadness because I saw the fact that my life had no impact on those around me.

I watched my friends carry on, taking life for granted. I saw my family forget about me with each deceitful tear. I observed face after familiar face continue on as if my life meant nothing. Lying there, in the hands of doctors and nurses, I decided that I was no longer going to give my life to the disease of self-denial; the plague of self persecution because of something that I could never change. Suppressing one thing about myself caused me to suppress so many positive, impacting attributes that God blessed me with. I’m funny. I’m caring. I understand to the point of empathy yet I buried it in a sea of self-desecration and denial. Who am I to judge myself more harshly than God himself judges?

I wondered, while I lay there reviving slowly, why did I hold the opinion of others so highly? Why did I take the word of supposed men of God over the word of God himself? How foolish I must have been to live my life, not for me, but for those around me. To be selfless is commendable and amazing in theory, but in truth it is painful. I do not suggest selfishness but never forget oneself in the matters of the world. This is exactly what I did. And in forgetting myself, I allowed other people to be able to forget me. By forgetting myself I disallowed who I am to shine through the muck and mire of life.

I did not see a white light or a narrow tunnel. I didn’t hear angelic voices or stand at St. Peter’s gate. I simply saw the truth. I witnessed the truth that lying to ones’ self will never grant. I’m twenty-nine and I finally had the epiphany of self. I have a mark to make. I have to imprint my existence on the plane of time because if I don’t do it then no one else will. I am a martyr. A living martyr because I died once with no legacy but now I choose to live only to create one. The next time I lie fighting to breathe past death the afterlife will look much more promising and I will enjoy the heaven of living my life to its fullest potential which is our basic duty as creatures of the Most High.