Flatline

And so, at the age of 36, it finally happened.

That which I, the Urban Single Mom, was always so afraid of. More afraid than I could ever be of being mugged, raped or assaulted. More afraid than I could ever be of failing at raising The Trolls into decent, hardworking, honest men. And more afraid than I could ever be of not finding the right Mr Man to make my Mr Man.

I died. Or rather… I came really, really, really close.

Cause of almost death? My lacklustre health, obviously.

Of all the things I’ve been turning a blind eye to because I was simply too busy, too tired or just not really that interested in the first place, my health should have been a priority to me, but of course it never was.

Yeah sure, I have a bad heart. I’ve known this.

Being diagnosed with rheumatic fever as a child, I knew I was always going to walk this earth with a ticker that doesn’t quite beat as strongly as the rest of them. And yes, every time I ended up at a GP’s office for a flu, a fit or a pregnancy, that pesky murmur picked up in my chest always surfaced.

“Yes, of course,” I’d promise to the friendly doctor with the worry in his eye.

To cut down on the coffee, the cigarettes, the stress, the bad lifestyle habits.

To take things slower. To schedule an appointment with a cardiologist. To change this. To change that.

I never did.

I never did…

Not when severe high blood pressure was added to the equation. And not even when I started noticing myself getting out of breath easier than usual.

The day I almost died was just like any other. I got up, took a shower, made a cup of coffee and had a cigarette. I had just completed an impromptu 24-hour work trip to the coast and was packing my bag in between sips and puffs, not giving a single thought to life, love or the hereafter.

Until… my heart started doing something it never did before. It started… stopping.

I could go into the whole scary, traumatic story complete with seizures in the ambulance, the horror of being resuscitated and fed oxygen in the ER, the frightening last words in the arms of my friend The Fairy before I collapsed and all that which is gory and frightening… but who really needs to go into all that?

What I will get into, and that which I promised myself never ever to forget as I lay in that hospital bed, was this: I know now what is truly important. To me. To this life, in this lifetime, at this point of my existence.

Because even if existence truly is eternal and you never really leave, you just move to another place and time (ha! Another thing I also know now!), what is real is regret.

The regret of not loving who you should love, when you should love them, as much as you should love them. The regret of not living the life you should live, when you should live it, how you want to live it.

Believe me. Nothing else matters. Not in heaven. And not on earth.

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