Does it hurt to die?

Have you ever thought about that? If it hurts to die? I'm not even talking about a person dying in a horrible accident or from an injury of some sort, but I just wonder if it hurts to actually DIE? Does the end of life hurt? I could get into a bunch of spiritual stuff, because I am a Christian, but I don't want to go there on this, really. I just wonder if dying is painful. What if the final thought we have on earth is "ouch"? After my dad died (immediately after), I was obsessed with the question of if he felt pain from dying. Not pain from having an amputated leg, or from having kidney failure, or out of control diabetes, but dying pain. Was his last conscious thought "ow!" (Just for kicks, my dad would say it was...) I fretted over the concept that there might have been just pain from leaving this life. From leaving his broken body to go to Heaven. I worried that his last thought was of me, and how I was going to handle it. But, mostly, I worried about any pain he might have felt when his soul (the most important part of him) left his body...

You know what? That pissed me off the most. Here I was staring at his BODY. But, as I would hear approximately forty million times in the next five days, "It wasn't HIM." His essence had gone. I just as well have been looking at a drawing of a person, or a painting. Or a portrait of my dad. It just goes to show that a person is their soul. Not this carriage we use to transport the damn thing around here. But I was mad! I mean, why couldn't his body have gone to heaven, and his soul been left here with me? That's the part I wanted! His soul! His body was no good to me! It couldn't laugh on its own or push me over for the fun of it. It couldn't give me "that look" when I was making no sense on any given subject. The body could just lay there. It just as well have been a deflated balloon.

But back to my original issue...Did dying hurt my dad? I'm going to say no because my mom was in the room with him when he did die. He turned his head to one side, gurgled a little bit, and was gone. Just Like That. I interrogated my mom for hours. "Did he make a sound?" "Did he cry out?" "Did he scream?" "Did he ask for me?" "Did he claw at the blankets or writhe around?" No, he just turned his head, gurgled a little, and was gone. Full code within seconds. They worked on him for 30 minutes. 20 minutes more than they normally work on people, but the doctor didn't want to give up. (I cry really hard whenever I type/write/talk about that part. Them working on him. His poor body had been through so much by this point. The thought of them straddling him in his hospital bed, trying to CPR him back into life makes me want to scream. If I would have been there, I would have screamed at them to stop, and then screamed louder when they wouldn't have been doing anything. For some reason, this part makes it so real to me.) I truly believe that dad was gone by then. Dead. There was no bringing him back.

You know, I seem to blog about this all the time. I'm sure people are probably sick to freakin' death (no pun intended) of hearing about my dad and how he died and all that crap. I could go on for hours, please believe. But, considering it's the most monumental event that has ever happened in my life, I am having a hard time getting my arms around it. Blogging helps me sort through things and get them out of the blender that is my brain. My friend told me it was theraputic. She was right! It seems like spewing these thoughts out on this site helps me sort them in alphabetical order in the file cabinet in my head. If I don't, they just go swirling and dancing and end up bouncing against each other. Well, not exactly. My thoughts are angry and pushy. They don't dance and swirl. They collide and crash. They burst and juke. They maneuver and fly. Sometimes they might spin around like a washing machine cycle, but they don't swirl. Where the hell did I come up with that?? I could be so lucky as to have my thoughts swirl instead of banging around behind my eyeballs.

That's all for me for tonight. Soon to come: My thoughts on what it will be like when I die. Obviously interspersed with my beliefs and what I think happened when my dad died. Imagine that. Bring a friend.

"I'm your Guardian Angel..."

My six year old daughter was telling me about her day at school and she mentioned that they have a new girl, named Chelsea. I asked my daughter if she made her welcome and talked to her and she said that she hadn't yet because "she didn't know if Chelsea wanted new friends." Of course, that made me tell her about my first encounter with my friend Angie, whom I met when I was the exact same age as my daughter. The story went a little like this:

I was in first grade in Catholic School in Crete, Nebraska. At the time, I was being taught by a nun who I believe was just a few minutes older than God Himself. There were very few kids in my class. Maybe seven or so. Nothing exciting ever happened in Catholic School. Ever. (The coolest thing, for me, was Jimmy Barber's impression of the nuns, which at the time I thought was absolutely hilarious. Kind of took away the mystery and cloak of fear surrounding them, I think. He did a great impression of Sister XXX drooling, which she always did, considering she was nearing 3,477 years old.)

I can remember Sister telling us that we were going to get a new student. Talk about perking up! Who would it be? Would it be a girl? A boy (gross!)? Would they be nice? Would we like them? We did find out that it was a girl, and her name was Angie, just like mine. Of course, being in a Catholic school, Sister had to use religion to introduce Angie, saying that since our names were the same, I could be her "guardian angel". Funny how 27 years later, I can still remember Sister using that term. Wow!! I felt important! I felt worthy! I felt like a Saint! I would be RUNNING that school in a few days!

In walked Angie...I wish I could say that I don't remember much about her, but I remember every detail like she just walked into my cubicle this morning. She had hair down to below her butt. That impressed me so much. She had a little pencil pouch that had a little bag of cheetos in it. (How the hell do I remember that???) And, she looked scared. Not pee-your-pants scared, but "I'm gonna face these kids and be brave about it" scared. Right away I put her on a level with a movie star. (Insert "Halleluja" music here.)

It was time for recess and I can remember flitting through the hall, arms out like a dork, singing "I'm your guardian angel. I'm your guardian angel!" What a geek I was. Yet, something in my debonair ways must have impressed her because 27 years later, we're still in contact with each other. Twenty Seven Years. Say it with me, now. Follow the bouncing ball. Think of me as Glen Miller and you'll do great. Twenty Seven Years.

So, needless to say, my six year old was enthralled. "Twenty Seven years!" She screeched. "That's practically your whole life!" Practically. My daughter is familar with Angie. I talk about her a lot. I talk about how much fun we used to have playing Barbies and how we about lived at each other's houses. (I'm not ready to tell her how we pretend smoked cigarettes or the elaborate relationships Barbie had with Ken.) But I do tell her that we spent every waking moment together from first grade until about sixth grade when Angie left Catholic School to go to public school. How we only had like, one argument that whole time. And how we'd go trick or treating for around four hours on Halloween. How we invented nicknames for each other. And, the most important moral? Even after all these years, we still talk.

I can't stress enough the importance of my daughter befriending New Chelsea. It may be hard for her to understand now, but hopefully, in 27 years, she can blog about it.

Hey, Dad...

Hey, Dad. Me again. How are things in Heaven? How's God? How are grandma and grandpa? We got some ice last night. I didn't drive like Mario Andretti, so I was okay. I kind of wanted to Monster Truck over people going 2 miles per hour on the interstate, but I didn't. We're supposed to get up to 20 inches of snow in the next couple of days. That reminded me of you. I can remember the days you used to have to work so much overtime when it snowed. I was looking through your check stubs when I was going through your stuff and sometimes you were working 80 hours a week plowing snow and clearing ice off the roads.

It was kind of funny...I was thinking about you on the way home, and I met a snow plow. I looked to see who it was, and couldn't see anyone in the cab. Was it you, Dad? Phantom snow plowing? Were you making sure my path was safe? I'm not saying the cab was EMPTY...I'm just saying that the light was hitting it just right to glare off the windows so I couldn't see the driver. I'm pretty sure it was you. Thanks for clearing my path. One thing they say in "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" is that life has to end, but love doesn't. I know that's true because I can still feel it. It didn't end for me when you died, and I know it didn't end for you because I can still feel it. The good thing is that you'll always be my protector until the day I come to meet you. Then we'll both protect my daughter, your granddaughter. Can I ride in the snowplow with you? I won't even ask to drive.