In a C of shock I tried to make sense of it all
In a C of horror I realised my mortality
In a C of doubt I hid my fears
In a C of pain I gained my strength
In a C of sorrow I drowned my tears
6 March 2008, 13h55, driving out of the parking lot at the office, heading towards the hospital just up the road where her surgeon’s practice is situated. She is not stressed, nor fearing anything, she has overcome so much already in her life. Over the past 12 years she has conquered heartache, rejection, self-doubt, sorrow, depression, fear and pain. She thought herself to be a strong-willed woman, self-taught not only in her career but in her life, she thought herself to be unbreakable. She has lost loved ones, had her fair share of disappointments and her heart has been fragmented many times, she has had her most intimate of trusts broken and has questioned her faith, having numerous monologue confrontations with her Lord. But she has survived, she has conquered, she has overcome all this. She was not afraid.
14H00, sitting in the waiting area at her surgeon’s office, going through her mental to-do list of everything awaiting her attention at the office, wanting impatiently to move past this doctor’s appointment and get on with her day. Seconds before….
Dermatofibrosarcoma Protuberance. Seconds before the end…
“It’s a very rare but very aggressive type of cancerous growth. We have to operate and remove it as soon as possible. Studies have shown a relatively low mortality rate, and we caught it early, but it has already produced 3 satellite growths, therefore the urgency to remove. This type of cancer cannot be picked up through any kind of blood test, and it has the capability of metastases to other organs.”
Seconds, what is in a second? Not even a tear can be completely formed in a second. But world can collapse in less than a second, and hers just did. In less than a second, everything she has gone through, experienced, conquered, overcame and ultimately shaped who she is, evaporated. Gone.
She kept her composure, a façade she perfected in her pre-evaporated life, not at all aware of what else the surgeon was saying. To this day, she will not be able to tell you what he said to her during those subsequent minutes of the appointment. She left his office, smiling friendly at the receptionist, and left the building. She walked to her car, not feeling her legs, distantly wondering how she is able to walk, measuring each step and calculating where each foot must be placed to mimic a normal human walk. Reaching her car, somehow her fingers have managed to grip the keys and were already busy pressing the remote button. Fascinated she watched how her body functioned, as if on auto-pilot. The only thought on her mind was “I can actually die”.
This is the most peculiar feeling, this realisation of ones own mortality. The inevitable fact that each one of us lives with every day, yet no one really realise what it means. As long as you wake up every morning, have your coffee and the luxury to cuss at your day job that just so comfortably happen to pay for your bond and vehicle asset financing, as long as you cover yourself each night with a puffy duvet and say your prayers, as long as you go to church each Sunday, as long as you drive your car, sit on the toilet, do the laundry, mow the lawn, make love, or just be a couch potato, you NEVER realise your own mortality, the true meaning. Life is there to be lived, and as long as we are living, we don’t think about dying.
But on 6 March 2008, roughly at 14H03, Christine has come to realise that her heart could actually stop beating, her lungs could actually collapse and her brain can stop functioning. She realised that this vessel she had dressed with designer clothes, was nothing more than meat, living meat, but still only meat. Meat that could decay and rot. And that there was a chance that she might not see tomorrow / next month / next year. She could expire, like a magazine subscription. And would her death really mean more than just that? An expired subscription. No funds available for renewal. Gone.
(736 Words)
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