I have been thinking about the fourth anniversary of the day I almost died. It was on April 15, 2009 when I was out for my regular five mile run when the electrical system in my heart began to drastically fail. I fainted, but found the strength to rise up and walk back home. A couple weeks later, I ended up in the hospital emergency with a heart rate of 24(normal heart rate is around 80). I was told that the fact that I run regularly allowed my body to tolerate a very low heart rate. I was also informed that I could have died at any time after my fainting spell. I ended up having a heart pacemaker installed on May first. I was reflecting on all this before I went to bed, went to sleep and began dreaming………

I was running on a spring day on the campus of San Francisco State and I was feeling optimistic because I felt certain that I had overcome several health issues that were plaguing me for the last several months. Suddenly in the middle of my run while listening to Leela James’s new cd “Let’s Do it Again”, I fell down; all the green trees and bright colored flowers disappeared. I knew that I was dying.

Everything just stopped and it became very dark. I felt at rest; like I was going away for good and that I just had my last run and witnessed my final view of the beauty that nature holds. I was some place between earth and whatever comes next. It was not a pleasant sensation and I took the time to ponder the fifty eight years that have been my existence.

I thought about all the times I had suffered and been in emotional turmoil. The confusion over my father’s death when I was fifteen, the physical and emotional violence I encountered in my work as a psychotherapist, being told that I was stupid by teachers, my father’s and mother’s disappointing looks at me, never feeling like I was truly loved as a child, the anguish around my mother’s death, the death of other family members and the intermittent state of being in intense fear of being left all alone and the feeling that whatever I did was never good enough.

No, I would not miss any of these feelings and their attached memoires. Good riddance! It seems that so much of my life was spent trying to identify and understand the different traumas I had experienced. This process is exhausting and I’m glad I don’t have to do it anymore. I reflect on all the times I have beaten up on myself for not measuring up to standards I believed I had to meet. It was so lonely and isolating-I was filled with guilt and shame. I will now be free of this.

Wait a second. Not so fast. There are some things I am going to miss when I am dead- Music flowing through my ears that lifts my spirits and provides the soundtrack to my life. Bob Dylan, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Marley, The Marvellettes, The Shirelles, P-Funk, Cyndi Lauper and Lauryn Hill produce sounds that I am passionate about and would never want to lose.

The music is warm to my heart as I feel my body move along with its rhythm while I am running down the street under sunny skies and torrential downpours. Memories of running in Highland Park, NJ, Chicago, Havana, Cuba, Negril, Jamaica, and Camden, Maine, all over Mexico, Kauai and Star Lake, Wisconsin are never far from my mind. I run to heal my wounds as well as capturing the innocence and sense of wonder that I had as a child. Now this will all vanish and this notion both scares and saddens me beyond belief.

Memories of hanging out with my friends and family having deep conversations trying to uncover the meaning of life and what our purpose is will certainly be missed as well a times we all laughed for hours and perseverated on new found ridiculous expressions.

Going out to restaurants, concerts and just walking down the city streets will be missed. The sun shining on my face after weeks of fog is a sensation I don’t want to ever part with.

Helping others by connecting with their pain and watching them grow stronger, braver and more self-assured is a wonderful gift I have that would now disappear. I have never been a religious person, but I do believe that my purpose as a Jew is to heal the world and all that would now be lost.

My fingers racing across the keyboard producing a string of words that I am amazed are coming from somewhere deep inside of me. Hearing how my writing moved someone or opened them up to new ideas will be forever gone.

Hearing the rain splash against the window and the sweet, salty smell of bacon are going to fade for good.

Holding my wife, Gail in my arms would now be a memory I could never access again. We have been together nearly forty one years and I couldn’t imagine not going to school with her every Monday morning or talking about the highs and lows of our days. Gail, who taught me so much including what unconditional love, is- I can’t take this, I can’t go out like this. Please don’t make me go away!!!!!

I turn over in bed and look at Gail’s smiling face as the sun streams into the room. She holds me and says, “Everything, everything is going to be alright.”