Looking at these photographs, I can only wonder how one can be so full of life this instant, and the next, be without it while struggling to live.
I had gone back to the mall with my sister to shop for some clothes. Laughing, taking in the scenery, while sister kept leaving me to gawk at the clothes that fascinated her.
Then, I felt a wave of nausea. It was too strong that I reached to a railing for support. And the rush of blood to my head. I told my sister, ‘I feel faint’.
But it was unusual. I had never fainted in my life and I do not vomit. But at that moment, I was in a different kind of reality, one that tasted steely on my tongue. It was fear. I was terrified. Was I going to die?
We paid for the clothes and with my sister, guiding me, we left Mr P. for MED Plus. MED Plus is one of the sections of the City Mall. I needed glucose, I thought. But glucose still did not make me feel better. My insides were burning and I had the sudden urge to throw up.
How I survived the traffic is still something that I cannot put into writing. It was torture trying to contain it and my eyes were doing jingle bells. An object appeared four to me. Then I got to cousin Juni’s office. I’d left my bag there and I wanted to pick it to go home. All these while, my sister was with me.
But I didn’t go home. I slumped in the nearest seat I could find while cousin and his friends gathered around me. Nobody knew what was wrong with me. Heck, I didn’t too. The room suddenly started closing in on me and I struggled for breath. I was sweating. I needed air so I rushed outside to get some, but I found myself in the toilet.
I sat on an upturned bucket in the toilet and willed myself to vomit. Perhaps I would feel better and the urge to, came out so strong I bent over the toilet and retched my guts into the bowl.
Tears burned my eyes and outside, I heard my cousin on the phone talking to someone whom I later figured was the pharmacist to bring a bottle of blood tonic for me. They thought I lacked blood and perhaps the antibiotics I’d been taking had somehow sucked all the blood I had in my system. This was one of his friend’s theory.
A hand reached out to me. It was his’.
“Ifunanya, how do you feel?”
And in a voice I didn’t recognize was mine, I said, “I’m too tired. I need something to lean on”. He told me to lean on him and that he wasn’t going anywhere.
That was it. I didn’t know what happened again for a few minutes. I kept coming to and going out with voices in my head. Later, I found myself in the car. They were taking me home.
This morning, I looked at myself in the mirror, but the person that looked back wasn’t me. The eyes were tired and distant and lost. The test results were not out yet and I still had some injections to take on my buttocks.
I flashed back to two nights ago when it all happened. Then yesterday, when I got off my bed still wearing the clothes of vomit. My sister said I reeked of vomit. It was all funny to me. As I scrubbed every part of my skin clean off that night. I didn’t want to remember any of it. It was too distressing. I stayed a little longer in the shower rinsing off anything that would bring back the memory of it. But just this morning, my eyes betrayed me. In them, I saw a lost little girl.
I did an ECG scan and a Chest X-ray after the doctor asked me lots of questions. I did a couple of other tests today. However, I can’t put off the feeling that I had come this close to death. My uncle said to me one day after we'd seen a bus struggle to overtake a trailer, ‘the distance between life and death is very little”. It is less than seconds. It can only be calculated in instants. How true his statement was. Perhaps, this was what was running through his mind as he paid the hospital bills.
I am scared. Not just for myself, but for all of us who have in one way, come in contact with death. I have always thought about how it felt. When my mum died, I had prayed she'd had a painless death, even though she died in an accident. Most of us are survivors, the ones who fight death every day by willing themselves to live and by pulling through every single day. While those who haven't experienced it don't understand what it feels like. Heck, I had what might just be less when it's compared to what others have gone through, but it still feels like I'd come very close to the other side...
And as I type this, and struggle to support my buttocks that hurt because of the pain from the needles, I ask you, ‘have you had a near-death experience? How was it?
Most times we are so occupied with getting MORE of everything we love and forget that someday we'll have to face death.
I can't recall having near death experience as scary as yours though. it sure seems like a really scary thing, the truth is "The living must always think about death because none can avoid it".
Great Story! Thanks for sharing.
I remember writing this...
"Ever wondered or worried about how you’re going to die? The abrupt finish. The final cut. Everything ending so suddenly and nothing ever matter again. All your loved ones, family, friends, well-wishers, and enemies, none of them getting involved again. Ever.
Or perhaps we could plan it. So it doesn’t have to be sudden again, yes?
How do you want it to be… brief, long, painless, painful? Do you want to see all your loved ones faces flashing before you in succession or do you want it to be a surprise to them, then you’d stand behind, skulking in the shadows, seeing their reaction as to the news of your death?
A friend said he’d pictured himself dying in an airplane crash but his uncle took that from him. Funny! Another friend wants a traumatic death. He wants to see himself dying before actually dying!
There was a time I could not bring myself to think about ‘it.’ A time I did not allow myself to call its name because calling the name would make it real, the same way I learnt not to call scorpion or snakes or any other crawling animals their names instead we referred to them as ‘Odogwu.’
There was also a time I allowed myself to think about death only on certain occasions when I am remembering the day a loved one died (I’m supposed to say passed out, I know). I don’t understand why we are taught that in masking certain words, we make them less serious. I remember there was a time I wanted to tell someone my mum had died; instead, I started thinking of a better way not to make it sound serious. So, instead of saying ‘died’ I had said something like, ‘she’d gone’ and I’d end up explaining what I’d meant by ‘gone’.
The truth is there is death. And there is life, and we are all going to die, eventually, and as Lana Del Rey sang, ‘…we were born to die,’ however you want to interpret this.
Not bringing oneself to think or talk about death does not take it away from existing and talking or thinking about it does not mean one is going to die soon. Also, saying, ‘life is not fair, why must it be…? In itself is unfair. Who else to die but not…?
I have had a hard time with grief. Someone once told me that there are stages of grief and the first stage being acceptance. And yes, while grieving is part of what makes us humans, moving on is a very strong feat that is not entirely unattainable. But I digress.
Do we, however, go about picturing how we are going to die? Do we throw all our fears of death into a creature, call it death, fling it farther away from us, and blind ourselves to it, plunging our being into other existential frivolities and making ourselves believe that if we do not as much as give regards to something, it does not exist.
Heck, I picture myself a lot of times and it’s really scary. But it is not the thought of how the worms are going to feast on me that scares the shit out of me. It is the thought of the people I leave behind and how I’m going to be remembered. If I’ll be remembered. And I picture myself dying a thousand times the moment I fade away from my loved one’s hearts. The moment I feel forgotten.
Accepting the fact that we are all going to die is very hard because nobody wants to die. After all, who wants to picture being beneath the ground and eaten up by moths and worms? But acceptance is the first step to actually living. Accepting death as a part of existence leads forward life and instead of being scared of how and when we are going to die, we live beautifully with the people around us and at peace with ourselves. "
Thoughts of dying scares me too. Somehow your response made me feel so guilty, and I think it's because it's the truth.
Oh dear! ~hugs~