An Apple a Day

It is hard to comprehend the past few days really. What I can recall is that Arly found me passed out beside my bed, barely breathing. So much about that night is fuzzy really, except I remember heaving and feeling as if the very breath inside me would never return. Honestly, I wanted to die. Maybe Arly knew this, maybe she understood that the pain of what I had felt and remembered in that nightmare was too much to bear. I really couldn't tell, but she had watched me with a careful eye the past few days and made me promise to talk about it when I was ready. Gazing out the window, I knew I would never be ready to have that conversation, not for a very long time. I just didn't want to go there, and part of me knew Arly understood this. 

This evening though something happened that upset Arly and at first I didn't quite understand why. She received some news that a man named Steve Jobs had passed away of  Pancreatic Cancer at age 56 and was heartbroken over it. I knew all too well what this cancer thing meant, as Angel Face's PawPaw died way too young over what she called the "C" word. I asked Arly about him, and why she was so upset. At first she didn't feel up to talking much about it but later she pulled me in her lap at the computer and showed me a picture of him. 

As I looked at him he seemed like such a young man to have died, kind of like PawPaw, and then I realized he was only 6 years older than I was. Arly then went on to tell me how important he was to the tech industry and how he had changed people's lives because of his inventions with the computers and many other things.  I thought a lot about this, and how some folks seem to work hard to serve others and contribute. Angel Face never really got a chance to do that, but I know like I am breathing that if she could have, she would have served others, her heart was just that big. 

Arly said she wanted me to hear a quote from Steve Jobs about dying......or living actually. I looked at her like she was daft, but when she read the quote I knew exactly why she shared it with me. 

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” Steve Jobs

I also felt ashamed for feeling like I wanted to die earlier. Yes, I hurt, my heart hurts, but I am still here. I still have something left to give, and deep down inside I know that Angel Face would want me to do that. I looked up at Arly with tears in my eyes and knew that I would be OK. I may have this huge hole in my heart but at least I have the ability to feel, and love, and experience life. Angel Face doesn't have that, but I do. What I know now is that despite what I remember or am not ready to face, there is life to be lived while all that takes place, and that life is important. I buried my head in Arly's lap and lay there for a while. We were both sad over losing people in our lives, but we were both still here, looking at the grass from the top not the bottom. I would have to work on being grateful for that, for I sure don't want to go back to picking dirt out of my mouth. 

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