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.
