I was listening to a man give an update about his health. This happened yesterday morning while sitting on the train and heading to work.
The video came after the man’s double lung transplant.
He has no memory of the last few months of his life.
Absolutely none.
However, his wife documented the last few months in her journal. I am sure this was hard for him to read. I am equally sure it was surprising for him to learn about the people who came to support him.
This man is famous in the mixed martial arts arena, but I do not want this entry to be clouded by fame or fortune.
For the moment, I will remove the information about who he is and his reasons for fame.
I remove these things because they are less important than his message.
So, what’s the message?
I suppose the will to live and the ability of love.
I listened to this man explain how he died four times…
Four times.
I listened to his voice, weak as you could imagine. He looked frail, and he was coughing and struggling to breathe.
He had brand new lungs. Or perhaps I should say the lungs were new to him and the donor’s demise is the reason this man is alive and breathing.
I thought about the will to live. I thought about the ability of love and what happens when people choose to stand with you.
I thought about the beauty and strength that comes when people stand by your side instead of standing away and letting you sink alone into tragedy.
Well . . .
I thought about my enemies and my arguments and all the incidents that led me (or you) to where we are now.
I thought about that feeling of being alone or having to face the worst by myself.
It’s been this way.
I thought about the wreckage of our past. I thought about the fights and disputes and the blame and finger pointing.
I thought about the accusations, which are all nonsense, as if to cast the blame on someone else to justify your behaviors.
I thought about how people do this when, in fact, the truth is this – we all have our hands in our mutual demise.
Love does not come with directions. Neither does life. Sometimes, pain or hurt or the ideas or the rejection can lead us to do or say hurtful and crazy things.
Sometimes our sanity is compromised. Sometimes our resentment leads us to betray our better dignity. And sometimes, the tidal wave from our outrage devastates the soul. Next, there we are, sitting in the aftermath of our own self-destruction.
Alone . . .
I am no better or worse than you or anyone else.
Even if we did or did not do the same things or commit the same crimes, I can say that everyone has their share of faults and sins. Everyone has their lies and things they did wrong.
I think about the most commonly misused words.
I think about the word love or how this word is often misused and how the word can almost become commonplace, as if to lose its meaning or just become another word.
I think how I used to say this all the time and never understood the true weight of what it means to love someone, “for always.”
I think about the word hate and how this word is tossed around. I think about the word life and how misunderstood we are.
Even better, I think about the word life and how we use the word, yet we fail to reach an understanding of how great it is to have one — a life I mean.
I think about the disruption or the aggressive energy of anger and rage. I think about the word kill or die, and I think we fail to realize the finality of these words.
But rather than digress or veer from the path, I watched a man confess his life in such a way.
He died four times.
Four times . . .
He had great doctors.
He had people who supported him and people who spoke up to help save his life.
He had someone to advocate for him.
But more than anything else, he had someone love him and stand by his side.
If this were me, now, I can say that I don’t know who would be there.
Who would stay with me?
You know?
I can say that I know the fear of dying alone. I can say that I thought about this and then I started to weep.
I started to cry on the train.
I started to think about the wreckage from my past or the turbulence of what happened over the last few years.
There are times when it seems like all is lost or that we are dying inside.
I never died four times and had to be brought back to life.
But I know what it’s like to die inside or die alive and be hopeless or alone.
I cannot put myself back to where I want to be. That window has closed.
I can’t fix the irreparable damage of what took place.
I know this.
But this is life sometimes.
This is life –
Until we learn
Until we understand
Until we change
I often remember the time I received a letter from an old friend named Kenny.
I’ll never forget what Kenny’s letter said:
It took me finding out that I was going to die to know what it means to live.
I get that . . .
The Written Addiction 