The night before I left for Boston to have open-heart surgery, I roasted the best batch of sunflower seeds I had ever roasted. None of them were burnt. All of them were evenly browned. And as I was scooping them into the jar, I had a funny thought: What if I never get to eat these? And they’re the best ones I’ve ever made.
It’s really the first thought I had of the actual possibility of my dying.
That’s not exactly true. I had forced myself a few times that week to memorize things and places as if I would never see them again. But I couldn’t take myself seriously. I knew I was doing it so I could write about it later. I actually (at least as far as my conscious mind goes) had not considered that I might die on the table. It seemed that people around me were acting as if this were a probability (even more than a possibility) and that my impending surgery was way more serious than I was taking it.
A few days before I left for Mass General, I was walking carefully in Aquinnah. Carefully because they had told me that, with this aneurysm on my aorta, I was a ticking time bomb and shouldn’t do anything strenuous. A few close friends joked: No problem, she doesn’t do anything strenuous in the first place. I love that people know me. Anyway, walking –– ambling, really –– I made myself think about my death, and it felt very possible and very safe. Emmanuel, Ram Dass’ disembodied friend, said death is like taking off a tight shoe.
I know what a tight shoe feels like. When you take it off, it’s a huge relief. So I thought, Relief for whom? And then I thought, Maybe I should go deeper with this.
And when I did, it was surprising how easily I made peace with dying. I felt as if I had done absolutely everything I ever wanted to do. And I understood exactly what my sister, Margie, meant when she refused any cancer meds, saying she was ready for the next adventure. But then I thought, Am I really ready? I love living and want to keep on doing it. But if it ended, I’d also be fine. I have no bucket list. I have left nothing undone.
So I made myself think about what it would be like to die on the table. (That’s a funny phrase right there, but this is a serious piece, so table that. Ha, ha.) When I made myself consider dying, I also thought how amazing it would be to see my mom and my sister and Dan and my father. I thought about the tunnel and the white light and how all of my ancestors would be beckoning me to come, and how it would feel so incredibly loving, and how hard it would be to choose life. But then my next immediate thought was: What about Joel and Josh, the best husband in the world and the sweetest son on the planet? And my friends who know me so well.
And that was it. Somehow I knew –– and I don’t know where this comes from –– but I knew with total certainty that I would be in charge of whether I lived or died, and that I wouldn’t let my loved ones suffer. So right there in Aquinnah I made my decision.
Now I know some religious people, and I am actually one of them, but I’m not one who would take issue with that. Only God decides if you live or die, they would say. But in Judaism, you are God, or at least a divine spark of God, and I knew that that spark could be the deciding factor. And I had just made my decision right on Lighthouse Road (how do you like that for a metaphor?).
Instead of “Happy birthday,” Vietnamese monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Han would say, “Happy continuation day.” So once I made my choice of having more continuation days, my next thought was wondering what I could do to reward myself for choosing the harder path. And choosing life was definitely the harder path, because the longer you live, the more aches, the more losses, the more sorrows.
And I came up with, maybe I could commit to learning “Für Elise,” or maybe I could be a voice on “The Simpsons.” Or maybe I could start doing some activities that my friends, who I love for knowing me so well, could call strenuous.
Who knows? Next time you’re in aisle three at Cronig’s, you might see me doing some upper-body weight training. Lifting the balsamic vinegar with one hand and a big bag of gluten-free pancake mix.
Or maybe selling my special, healing, roasted-with-love sunflower seeds. Then you’ll know I’m back.
