The Night My Brain Exploded

(ALERT: NSFW language)

Here's a story:

My mom passed away on May 14, and we held her funeral on Tuesday, May 20. That night, I went to bed around 12:30. That's early for me - I wanted to be well rested for the drive back on Wednesday.

I don't know when Janet came to bed; that didn't rouse me. But when she came back to bed after getting up to use the bathroom, I woke up.

I did not wake up drowsy and tired. I did not wake up merely refreshed. I woke up surging with energy, feeling as if I were ready to explode, because of the dream I had just had. I said something to Janet about wondering whether I should tell her about the dream, but I needed to go to the bathroom.

Dreams fade quickly; by the time I wrote about the dream in my journal, some details had faded. But it went something like this:

I was, it seemed, a new employee in the marketing department of a large company. And somehow I was chairing a meeting of honchos. And I left the meeting and ran into someone from the design department - bumped into him so that he dropped his stuff - and as I was helping him pick it up, either I saw this phrase on one of his papers, or he spoke it: "Change the fucking world."

And it penetrated like a bullet, and set me on fire.

And I went back to my meeting, which was running late, or running long, or both, and instead of feeling scared because of that or apologizing for that, I went in with total swagger because it didn't matter that the meeting was late or long or both, what mattered was that we were going to change the fucking world. And I said so.

And I saw "change the fucking world" becoming a global mantra, with me as chief guru for the attendant movement. I saw myself, like Anthony Robbins (Has he stopped being "Tony"?), onstage in an auditorium filled with thousands - no, tens of thousands - pouring out verbal fire to help them change themselves so that they could change the fucking world.

I saw T-shirts emblazoned with a four-color logo: CTF*W. I saw bumper stickers with the same. Coffee mugs.

I saw myself re-ordering my personal relationships, putting family, friends and acquaintances on notice: "I want people around me who want to change the fucking world. If you don't want to change the fucking world, that's okay - but I gotta ask, 'Why not?'"

And there was was music - a throbbing anthem for full orchestra, led by brass.

And I woke up ready to change the fucking world, NOW.

On my way to the bathroom, I glanced at the wall clock in the kitchen and thought it said 6-something, and concluded that I may as well stay up, because there was no way that I could fall back asleep. I'd do better to start getting ready to leave - I felt like I could drive a thousand miles.

The music was filling my brain, along with the images of T-shirts and bumper stickers and me onstage before tens of thousands ("Now get outta here, and CHANGE THE FUCKING WORLD!" Crowd roar: "YEAAAHHHH!!!"). And, and...

I was linking "Change the fucking world" to the call of Christ and the identity of the Christian:

For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to devote ourselves to the good deeds for which God has designed us.     (Ephesians 2) 

"We're created in Christ Jesus to change the fucking world," I said.

And all of this is happening on a trip to the bathroom, and I want to ACT, so I pick up my phone to check the availability of the website address, changethefuckingworld.com, and I see that...

...it's 3:26 a.m.

WHAT???

I was totally jazzed emotionally, I was almost exploding with physical energy, and my mind was focused like a laser and racing like a lightcycle...

...on three hours of sleep????

I immediately wanted to know, "What brought about this phenomenal state, and how can I get it again?"

My best guess, then and now, is that my state was fueled by having drank multiple glasses of punch at the funeral meal, followed by two cans of Pepsi later. Both my body and brain may have been sent into overdrive by sugar and caffeine.

That answer's a bit disappointing, as I don't want to make massive doses of sugar and caffeine parts of my regular diet. But the question of how to place myself at will into a state of high energy, high confidence and high clarity remains intriguing, to say the least.

It's also possible that my state was fueled in part by a heightened awareness of mortality. I was already working at maintaining an awareness of mortality, so to the extent that that may have been a factor, re-experiencing the state would just be a matter of getting better at that.

For now, I am finding that the very act of recalling the event elicits at least an echo. I do, in fact, want to change the fucking world (tm).

No. Not "want to."

Intend to.

Notes Of A Resurrectionist, Following A Death

I posted my last entry so late on the night of Friday, May 9, that it was early in the morning of Saturday, May 10. Later that morning, my brother Al called to say that Janet and I should come to Louisville, because Mom had taken a turn for the worse. We got there that night.

Sunday, the 11th, we visited her at the nursing home. She hadn't eaten since Thursday.That evening my siblings and I decided to request hospice care, and to bring her back home.

Monday, the 12th, we met with the hospice worker. Tuesday, they brought her home, and a stream of family members stopped by to visit her. The hospice worker told us to adjust her every couple of hours to prevent bedsores, and gave us a schedule for administering medicines.

Different people sat with her at different times. I was with her late, and crawled in bed around 4:30 Wednesday morning, the 14th. Janet woke me around 5:00 because she was concerned about Mom's raspy breathing.

Janet and I were adjusting her when she stopped breathing altogether.

I went downstairs to tell Al and his wife Yolanda, who had devoted much of their lives to caring for Mom in recent years. And they came up. And we said goodbye in our own ways - mine was to kiss her temple and say, "See you later, old lady."

I meant it.

Because I believe in Jesus's resurrection, I also believe in everyone else's, including Mom's and mine.

If I continue here as long as she did, it will be another 32 years before I shuffle off this mortal coil. After which, I expect that she and I, in whatever forms we manifest, will enjoy one another's company again. For a lot more than 32 years, or 62, or 94. As a verse of "Amazing Grace" (not written by John Newton) puts it:

When we've been there ten thousand years,
bright shining as the sun,
we've no less days to sing God's praise
than when we first begun.

When I posted the news of her death on Facebook, I wrote, "she had a good run, and loved Jesus for a long time, and I therefore consider this transition, like graduation from a really tough school, more of a triumph than a tragedy."

During the following days, I kept waiting to be waylaid by sadness, to experience something that I could recognize as part of the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I wasn't; I didn't.

By the following Monday afternoon, when we visited the G. C. Williams Funeral Home for the family viewing in advance of the wake that evening, the disconnect between what I expected to feel and what I did feel had reached the point where I just blurted out to our funeral director, while I was signing some papers, something like,

"I just can't get myself to feel sad." I was too filled with gratitude for having had Mom for so long. Gratitude for her making it for 94 years. And happy for her, because now she is with Jesus. I said that to the funeral director, and ended with, "Where's the downside?"

Will I miss her? Of course. But at most I will miss her for 30 years, maybe. How infinitesmal will that 30-year slice of time feel when we are both still young five million years from now? Please!

For at least a couple of days, I was genuinely afraid that my lack of sorrow, my lack of heartbreak, indicated a degree of ...what? Sociopathy? A degree of not being mentally healthy.

But then I would remember 1 Corintihians 15, and 1 Thessalonians 4. And I would think of Revelation 14:13 - "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." And I'd hear Brahms' setting of that line ("Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herren sterben von nun an."). And even sing it.

And I could not feel sad for any more than the briefest of moments. In the light of resurrection, the five stages of grief - or at least the first four - simply seemed unnecessary. I felt like I went straight to acceptance: She's gone, and that's ok, because she's better off now than we are, and because we'll see her again relatively soon.

The most awkward part has been speaking with unbelieving friends. They offer their condolences for my loss, and I appreciate it so much, because I know they mean so well, but I've wanted to say somehow, "Thank you, but I view this as a temporary separation, not a permanent loss. I'll miss her for a while, but we'll be together again in such a better way, and for so long, that this is minor."

Maybe grief will still sneak up on me and knock me for a loop. If it does, so be it; sometimes we just need to let ourselves feel our feelings. But until then, I won't try to make myself feel what I don't, because, really...

She's with Jesus. Where's the downside?

Just A P.S.

I feel obligated to note, for readers of the last post, written late Wednesday night, that I did not go to the community health center Thursday. Instead, I went to the emergency room at West Penn Hospital. They kept me overnight, did an EKG, took X-rays, tested my blood, had me do a stress test....everything came out looking fine. So, whatever happened last week was not a heart attack.

But this remains true...

TR = X - 1.

A New Word, A New Question

This popped up in my G+ feed Wednesday, courtesy of +Stacey Gorzin  and +Mani Scienide, and nearly knocked me out of my chair:

What a lovely and delightful word, and how perfect for the life I seek to live.

And I want to add, "while I can."

So, there's this - last Thursday evening, while still processing the intimations of mortality I had experienced the night before, I experienced chest pains. Bad enough to make me Google "heart attack symptoms." Then what I read was scary enough to make me check my wallet for my medical insurance card.

Which wasn't there. Then I started trying to figure out where it could be. Then I started trying to figure out how I might access my medical insurance info without it. And learned that www.healthcare.gov had changed everyone's password in response to the Heartbleed threat. Then couldn't remember my security question answers. Then....

The pain eventually passed.

Tonight I finally told Janet. My fear of upsetting her gave way to the fear of being the husband whose widow says, "Why didn't you tell me, you #$*%!"

She and I have often had conversations acknowledging the reality that we will die someday. Since Thursday night, I have been dogged by the question, "What if I die soon?"

I have long since agreed with Paul that, on the whole, it is better to be There than to be Here. But if I left right now, I would leave a great big mess of unfinished business.

Gotta fix that.

Meanwhile, tomorrow morning I'll visit the community health clinic that I keep forgetting about, and tell them about Thursday's chest pain. And the lump that appeared on the back of my left hand Friday night. And the numbness - or is it an ache? - that has rested in my left arm for the past four hours or so.

And tomorrow afternoon, either use the will kit that came with my Legal Shield membership to work on my will, or if I can't find it, request a new one.

A Shift In Being - From Fear To Desire (1 of 2)

In Thursday's post, I promised that next I would write about "What happened earlier yesterday that made last night's experience even more deeply impressive."

I meant to write it sooner, while the memory was more vivid than it is now.

Now I don't know how to describe it...

I experienced a new degree of the desire to love.

I have changed over the years. Different propositions have taken hold in my mind, or heart - or simply in my brain, for those of that bent.

First, "I should love my neighbor." It is commanded.

Second, "I am afraid to love my neighbor." I don't know these people - I don't know their intents, or what they're capable of.

Third, "I must love my neighbor." Regardless of fear, it is commanded.

Now, "I want to love my neighbor." My neighbor is precious and contains great value, and the life that I have been given in Christ, loves.

I want everyone I know, everyone who experiences me, to experience being loved. Being valued. Being served. I want to love others into freedom. I want to demonstrate the love of God, radiant and relentless.

Of course, I cannot demonstrate that love alone. That is what the Body of Christ is for. But still, the intensity of the desire to love was breathtaking.

And I don't know what to do with that.

That's an observation, not a complaint. I believe that I will learn; that You, Lord, want to teach me.

I think a lot of it will have to do with hugs.

So, that was Wednesday afternoon/evening. Then, late Wednesday, the urging toward urgency. My days are numbered, and I do not know the number, but I do know that every day, it is reduced by one.

TR = X - 1

Time remaining in days = total time in days (unknown) minus one day.

I need to love, more deeply, more broadly, more consistently, than ever before.

I also need to make more money and create or acquire more assets than ever before.

Those things do not conflict. The second must be the result of the first, and driven by the first.

I need to earn enough to care for my household. This includes creating legacy income for Janet, should I predecease her.

I need to earn enough to help take care of Mom.

I need to earn enough to have something to share with the needy.

I need to do this soon.

TR = X - 1.

NEXT: A Shift In Being - To Be A Neighbor (2 of 2)