Learning from the Heart
by Wayne Scheer
I didn't feel much the morning of my heart surgery. I had already been given a sedative and I have no memory of being wheeled to the operating room, my family following along side. I had no chance to offer a forced smile or kiss my wife's tears. I guess those moments are reserved for made-for-television movies.
What I do remember is the night before in the hospital room, just after the nurse injected "something to help him sleep," into one of the many tubes attached from my arm to a machine in back of my bed. I could hear my wife trying to swallow her sobs and my daughter-in-law sniffling. The nurse told them they would have to leave and, as my wife and daughter-in-law kissed my cheek and forehead, I heard my son whisper in my ear, "Dad, if you die it would really piss me off."
I tried joking about how it would also ruin my plans for the weekend.
My son's words stayed with me. Leaving him with a mother, a wife and three small children to care for would be beyond cruel.
In all honesty, survival hadn't been a major fear going into the operation. Although I was assessed of the risks, I was also assured that the kind of open-heart surgery I was facing was just short of routine. Whether it was my ability to suppress, a blind trust in a surgeon I had only recently met, or the simple resignation that comes from having no better options, death was little more than a fleeting worry. After all, if I died, chances are good I wouldn't know it.
They say there are no Atheists in a foxhole, but I found the opposite to be true. I took solace in my suspicion that there is no afterlife and no God waiting to judge me. Consciousness would simply end. I wouldn't spend eternity learning lessons I failed to achieve in this world. I wouldn't return, in one capacity or another, based on my successes and failures here on Earth. My sins and virtues would be as irrelevant as last week's newspaper.
It was after the operation that I began feeling anxiety as I observed the worry on my wife's face and the half-closed eyes of my son and daughter-in-law who had been dividing time between their children and the hospital. This sounds rather shallow, I know. Of course, I understood how much my wife loves me and how devastated she would be if I died suddenly. Of course, I understood the same is true for my son and his family. But there's nothing like lying in a hospital bed, in a morphine induced stupor, tubes sticking out of your arms, neck and stomach, to realize how important your seemingly insignificant place in the universe really is.
I matter. My life matters. It's the kind of insight that sounds almost silly when uttered aloud. But, like my son's joke, it offers me inspiration to focus on my recovery. It seems surprisingly clear: it's who I love and who loves me here and now that matters. I find that reassuring.
After teaching writing and literature in college for twenty-five years, Wayne Scheer retired to follow his own advice and write. He's been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and a Best of the Net. His work has appeared in The Christian Science Monitor, The Pedestal, flashquake, Flash Me Magazine, Smokelong Quarterly, Pindeldyboz, The Potomac, Hamilton Stone Review, Stone Table Review, and Triplopia. Wayne lives with his wife in Atlanta and can be contacted at wvscheer@aol.com.