There's an empty space inside my heart where the weeds take root..

            I wonder if anyone (forgetting the fact that no one reads this) could get the references in to my post's title's..  Did I use the apostrophe right?

            "My mother is a fish"

            So there was a family in in the hospital today.. Family and friends I suppose. They were all here for a man who was in the ER. He was in his 50's-60's, unconscious, all that good stuff. Judging by his state, I'd guess he was in a car accident due to the rain. (I can't be specific on details, I'm legally restricted from doing so. Won't risk it, not even on a blog that no one reads). I suppose he was a hopeless case as the doctor and Charge RN were talking to the (quite large) family/friends group in the 'Family Consultation' room while they all were crying their eyes out..

            It's weird. I mean, the guy wasn't very young, but for his 50's he looked pretty young and healthy. And all of the sudden his life is cut short because of a freak accident. (Makes me wanna check out the weird thing my tires do in the rain..). Every time that family wears those same clothes, walks down the hallways of that hospital again, drive in the rain, or look at the date February 15th, all they will see (or at least the wife) is the day he died. I know stopped wearing the jacket that I was wearing the day a friend of mine died.

          But that is life. One day or another, we all have to watch people we know and love go.. The weird part is watching them go. As I sat there in the ER a few weeks ago with another patient, and again today with this one,  I realized the one thing I haven't gotten used to is just the fact that I'm standing there watching another persons life, their memories, their dreams, their aspiration, their hopes, their fears, their loves, their regrets, their sorrows, their joys, their grief, their beliefs, all of it, end so abruptly, so uselessly, and so pathetically. The Universe simply weeds them without pity, without respect, without any care at all. To watch someone die in front of your eyes, to see the very life from them just fade, to watch their soul dissipate and reduce them to just a husk of dead and dying organic material, a simple piece of meat. It is so strange. That is the best I can describe it. It is so strange, and despite being one of the most human processes of all, it is so alien. Are we really just a collection of electric impulses that "feel" through chemical and hormonal imbalances? Is that our destiny? Or are we something more? Religion tells us a great many things. Carl Sagan poetically states that 'we are a way for the Cosmos to know itself', although that still doesn't work out for us as individuals..

           I'm scared of dying, yes. But I don't think I'm scared of death itself. If my faith is based in truth, then I suppose I will be in a great place. If I'm wrong, then there is nothing to fear, I'll never even know I was wrong.
But last night, I dreamt that a couple people I know came back to the realm of the living. No, they weren't undead zombies, just 'back' to living. I remember asking them "What's out there? What happens after you die?". The conventional answer in movies/literature/etc would be some vague answer stating that "you can't know till you're there yourself", but in my dream, my undead friends gave me an answer in the form of a cruel, solid, definite, final "Nothing". "Nothing happens, there is nothing afterwards" they said. I fought the answer with more question and suggestion, but they simply just said "No man, death is it"

          I'll tell you, that answer upset me so much, I actually woke up right there and then with this horrible heavy feeling in my chest. It was a mix of hopelessness, despair, and anger. But mostly fear that I've never felt before. Not on that magnitude. I didn't wake up screaming. It wasn't a nightmare, but I've never woken up from a dream feeling that disturbed. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever felt that upset during my normal waking hours either.

          And I don't understand. Death is something I've thought about. I've ran from it, I've rejected it, I've grieved because of it. I've accepted it. The thought of BEING dead is something (I thought) I came to terms with.

Here's some depressing food for thought:
Everyone you see, every friend, every sibling, every teacher, every picture. They're all going to one day be DEAD, DEAD, DEAD. Go out and do what you've wanted, DAMN IT!


I need to stop watching people die in the ER.