A few weeks ago, I died.

It was a quiet Sunday morning

Filled with warm sunshine

and a mild chest discomfort

I surprised myself

by doing the prudent thing

without knowing what I was doing

I arrived at the ER…Just in case

I listen as someone is told it could be a

Heart attack.

Wait…

That’s me they’re speaking to.

We’re going to lay you out on this table

And check out a few things, just to be sure

Just relax we’ll take care of everything.

A gentle push, an insistent pull, they align my body

Beneath the banks of technology

I’m looking up, into so many earnest faces

the self-assurance of those that have been here before

Their confidence seeks to reassure, to contain the rising panic

Among the crowd, my daughter, the tears in her eyes

Betrays the reassurance she seeks to convey

With a squeeze of my hand she quietly withdraws

In her place anxiety flows in, a cold grip on my imagination.

A disembodied voice says we just need to take a chest x-ray

I’ll just slide this plate underneath you

Stepping out of sight to take the x-ray

My heart chose that moment to stop.

No bright celestial lights appeared

No chorus of angelic voices

One minute the reassuring background murmur

The next minute, blackness and a silence as deep as death itself

Gone in that instant, my entire lifetime of certainty

And so, it was that I died on that Mother’s Day