All Too Human

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After belting out my Super-Dad post a couple weeks ago and watching it make its rounds on the Internet I was made to feel all too human at 6 am on Easter morning. At 6 am we (the wife and I) received the call we didn't want to receive. It was the 2nd call actually. The first happened several hours earlier in the middle of the night to notify us that one of my wife's cousins --- a beautiful, elegant, tall woman of the young age of 50 --- had suffered a brain aneurysm. The 2nd one at 6am was that she was brain dead and on life support.

We both laid there in silence, not sure what to say or do. The suddenness of it all rocked both of us to the core. In the early morning darkness I stared out into the space in front of me and thought nothing, but I did feel just that much more mortal...just a kiss away from the lips of death that can and do come without warning or notice, obliterating in seconds what in most cases takes years to develop and master --- you know, that thing called life?

Right then and there I was "all too human", made of flesh, and more importantly blood --- the life that courses through me pumped by a heart that gets it's electrical kick from who knows where, overseen by a brain that runs the whole human system like a small government, with the only difference being that it works versus what we call government.

My son had a basketball tournament scheduled later that morning that was ultimately canceled. I went to church in my Easter comfortableBest where I listened, sang, clapped and even did a little bit of the sanctified dance in my aisle. Later that evening I barbecued and we had a wonderful dinner out on the back deck of our home. I found myself staring at my family with a new found understanding of them. They are the people in my life and they are to be cherished. I knew this and I know this but yesterday I felt incredibly responsible for them, even my wife. It was almost overwhelming.

I don't fear death, but yesterday it felt much closer to it than I have in a very long time. Death has been a part of my life since the age of 8 when my mother's mother passed away, but death has always been reserved for other people: older people, people on drugs and alcohol, people driving too fast in cars, people drunk in cars, people serving in Iraq. Name the reason and at least there's a reason. But this, similar to the accidental killing of one of my cousins back when we were teenagers hangs inexplicably in the air, just like the notion that life ain't fair.

This week I'm going to do my best via this blog to bring awareness to Brain Aneurysms and help to shed a light on the signs and symptoms leading up to it.

Some of the Easter message from Pastor Olu Brown from Impact Church was that you are to act and know that your time is NOW! To know that nothing in the world, no problem you can come up with, is greater than God. Walk with joy. Forget the place where you've been or even where you are. Conduct yourself as if you are already where you want to be. Time is short. Life is precious.

LIVE.

E.Payne is the author of Investing In An Emotional Letdown and I Didn't Invented Sex. For the past 3 years he has posted 600+ articles about fatherhood, marriage and everything in between here at Makes Me Wanna Holler.com. To learn more, click here.