Death cruelly slow, cruelly fast

At yoga yesterday, I shared with my instructor that this week, I had taken 8 kickboxing classes and had sparred 4 times. She asked what I was fighting. She inquired why I was angry. In a 30 second blitz, I disclosed that my former secretary of 15 years was suddenly in hospice; that she is 44 years old; that her kids are 5, 8, and 15; that she did not have a mean bone in her body; that her husband was just laid off; that this sucked! She sympathized reminding me that I was also confronting my own mortality.

My own mortality. I will be 47 this summer. Oh, age 47, how long I have dreaded thee!

My father was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer when he was 47. It took him 5 years to die. He spent 2 1/2 years bedridden, miserable unable to die. I was the one who had to tell him his fate. Again and again.

My partner's mother dropped unconscious one day in front of her then 14 year old, my future partner. The aneurysm put her mother into a coma for months. Another lingering death. My partner's mother was 47.

A year ago, a work friend died less than a year after he retired never getting to travel across the US, his lifelong dream.

Late last year, my friend Arpana was wrenched from the world. Brutality. Horror. Murder.

Now, a friend lays laboring. Death swiftly claims her not. Each time I see her, she is less her self. I see the pulse dutifully course through her neck. I hear her lungs straining under task. She sleeps more. Her hands are cool. There are salt tracks trailing from her eyes. She knows me. I hold her hand. I talk less. I smooth her hair. I wish under my breath for a painless, quicker passing. I see her nod. I will not cry yet. She doesn't need my tears. She needs my presence. To know I care. Or I need her to know I care.

So, I rage at death's frivolity. At it's capriciousness. Claiming those I love without warning. Sparing them a swift death, to linger painfully. Taking them fast in violence.

I fight. I fight death. I kick and punch for my life. I permit pummeling as a reminder I am here. My body is living. Breathing hard as in sparring, slow as in yoga. I am here. I, my body, is alive. Still.