Whelp, I’ve got cancer. It’s the second time I’ve had it. About 9 months ago I was told the docs would treat me but I probably wouldn’t make it.

Its been a hell of a time.

It’s a blood cancer so at the moment I look normal from the outside. I’ve changed a lot though, in the sense that I’ve become more me.

I don’t give a shit about anything except for spending time with people I like. I especially don’t care about money or work.

It (death) is taking a lot longer to happen than I thought it would.

The real trip has been seeing other people’s reactions; I accepted it early on but other people have had very different reactions. Mostly I think they just don’t know how to react, or they don’t think it will actually happen, or both.

I don’t think the human mind is capable of understanding the concepts of “eternity” or “oblivion” very well.

I do believe in God but it’s still scary.

Its the everyday things that catch you off guard; the other day I was wondering when the next soccer world cup would be, then I realised I probably wouldn’t be around for it.

I think when I finally die it will be a relief from all the physical pain.

Death by massive head injury is not a bad way to go. I remember a sunny morning, heading to the bank a mile from my house to deposit my paycheck, and riding towards work. I merged behind a Jeep Grand Cherokee to pass an idiot that was double parked in the bike lane. It was down hill and I easily topped 35 mph to match speed with the Jeep. That is the last thing I remember. Like it was all totally blank and even worse than anesthesia level blackout.

Three hours later, someone pulled a large piece of glass out of my face that severed major nerve in my lip. That woke me up.

That is how I want to go; a pretty day on a nice bike ride, feeling fantastic, then totally blank.

In reality, I was lucid the whole time apparently, or so I was told. I honestly do not have ANY memory of it whatsoever. If you know of anyone that dies tragically with a major head injury, I want you to think of me. Even if they appeared conscious or aware but disoriented, that wasn’t the last thing they felt or remembered, I promise, I’ve lived it; only barely survived it. I still don’t remember a thing.

I was in the hospital in January following a heart attack.

I woke up one morning and was on my phone when the nurse came in.

“Were you asleep about an hour ago?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Your heart stopped for 8 seconds.”

“. . . Uh, thanks? I guess? I’m not sure what you want me to do with that information.”

Never knew it happened.

Death itself isn’t necessarily the worst part of dying. In many ways, it’s the most merciful part, that can free a person of their suffering.

I took care of my Dad for some years before he passed away, after it became apparent that he was losing his mental faculties and having physical problems after he had had a stroke. It was a slow & steady decline, month after month, just seeing him lose the ability to do regular, basic things.

At some point, his personality died and the person I knew was gone long before the physical body died. He turned into a zombie of sorts, just wanting cigarettes & soda, those were the only things he wanted anymore to the exclusion of everything else. I felt powerless to do anything about it, I helped him as best I could, but years of him smoking and eating/drinking like crap had caught up with him finally.

Death can come to anyone at any time and unless you live to be 150 years old it will always seem like you didn’t get enough time, so it’s best not to worry about it.

I’m in a line of work where I see death very very often.

I don’t know what I’ve learned from it. Besides that it’s coming. I also know there are things worse than death. Often, in the end, people/families can’t accept it, and they end up uselessly suffering.

A dead body doesn’t look real. The stillness and one’s denial mechanisms combine to make it look like a mannequin.

This one is macabre.

I am a homestead farmer so I have hundreds of animals most of which I raised like a baby, they all have names, each was hand fed and raised from birth by my wife and I. We are deeply attached to each of them and it is like losing a child when one dies.

Firstly I can tell you that you can get used to your children dying, you can repress it. I’ve spent many hours digging graves over time made all the more painful by the fact that often times I would stay with these animals through the entirety of their ill health. Often they would sleep in the room with my wife and I or even in the bed if the right type. When you read something like charolettes Web or what have you and see some old farmer indifferent to their child who wants to keep their animal friend. That is not from some kind of “depersonisation” or dissonance or even indifference to this animal, it is knowing acceptance from a lifetime of pain watching their friends and children die and being forced to bury them.

I can tell you that if you need cpr I’m your man, I’ve had alot of practice. There’s lots of things cpr won’t fix but that had never stopped me from trying. Maybe just maybe if they can have that extra breath or beat they can beat whatever ails them so I try. Here’s the fucked part; there is a moment where when something dies, it’s easier to see in mammals, there is a moment just before the death rattle, you can see the thing is dead and if you have seen this before you will know what I’m talking about. At this moment of gasping you can “catch” them, like you are catching their escaping souls with your lungs and blowing it back into their mouths. Their eyes get glazed and they do this straining wail and tilt their head, all things in the same way, that is your moment to bring them back and you can see it instantly as their eyes come back to focus and they usually scream in some way.

I’ve only ever saved 2 in this fashion and I have a large grave yard.

There is no God.

I used to think I wanted whatever possible done to keep me alive. Use the machines, keep me in the coma for years, what have you. Maybe someday they’ll fix me.

My grandmother had a pretty massive stroke. She had some sort of living will, Do Not Resuscitate, something like that, but none of the family could really bring themselves to enforce that so they put a temporary feeding tube in and I think when that reached its limit switched to a more permanent variety.

I can’t remember if she woke up before or after the second feeding tube, but she did wake up in just a couple days; the stroke happened on a Friday and she was definitely awake the next week. She said she was glad they did the feeding tube.

However, while she was still able to talk pretty well, she lost her ability to swallow. Not only could she not eat anything and had to stay on the feeding tube, she couldn’t even drink anything or she risked it going into her lungs. Every time she felt her throat get dry she had to have a nurse with a wet sponge come moisten her throat. They tried electroshock therapy, but it never helped. She described it as the worst torture she’d ever felt and wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy, but continued trying it because there wasn’t any other alternative from the doctors and it’s really hard to live and not be able to swallow.

She spent months like this, back and forth between the hospital and rehab/nursing centers, doing better but then getting sick in the homes and having to go back to the higher care of the hospital. She never returned to her own home except for a couple hours when one of her sons took her just to see it. In the end one of those times in a nursing home she got sick and started vomiting, some of which went in her lungs and led to her death in just a day or two. All those preceding months of suffering seemed like a waste, just delaying the inevitable.

I don’t want everything possible done to keep me alive anymore. I don’t want to die, but sometimes there are worse things than dying.

I live in the Midwest, right on the edge of tornado alley. When the sirens go off there’s three kind of people. People who do the right thing and go hide in the basement or the bathroom or whatever. People who just completely ignore them and keep doing whatever. And then the dip shit rednecks who run outside like ‘IMMA SEE ME A TORNADER’

I bounce between option two and three depending on my mood. One time this happened and a tornado actually started to form directly above me. Three times in a row it started to come down and then crap out.

What really surprised me the most was my reaction was a calm ‘huh. So this is it…’ Didn’t try to run. Didn’t even move, and not in a frozen in fear way.

And i guess what I learned is I’m ready when the time comes.

Stop worrying about the news, turn it off, and spend more time with family and friends.

Here & now, here & now, here & now, I chant in my head as that’s all we have.

Never take the people you love for granted. Don’t wait on any deed or utterance that is unfulfilled, and know how fast they can go in a matter of minutes if you take your eyes off them. I made that mistake more than once. In the blink of an eye, life can go from 42 to 0.

That god isn’t real and religion is a lie. It has made me more of an atheist than I’d ever care to proclaim and even more interested in science.

Grief…doesn’t motivate you. In movies, guys like me, people who have had loved ones killed through prejudices and big evil organizations 🐘 do something about it. Whether that’s activism or something more illegal. But I was way more aggressive about my political views before my girlfriend died. Now it’s like…I can’t muster up the ability to give enough of a shit to do more than vote.