The Thing That Rules Us All

 I had no idea that therapists were so fond of decks of cards.

And board games. And board games with decks of cards in them.

Questions, questions, and more questions; time and again spread out over hours and hours of every day during those two weeks (though I got nights and weekends off, I did always have homework and that invariably included more questions).

 One of my 'homework' assignments that was most difficult emotionally was to create a 'vision' board of things are meaningful to me or that would make me happy. I'm still exhausted from doing it.

Eerily enough, no matter how each different therapist divided the varied decks of cards, the questions each person got seemed always more appropriate than it could possibly seem random.

I wonder if they ever (or routinely) stack the deck?

Even if it's not a common practice, I guess it could be that’s what happened this time. It’s not like I would have noticed.

The 'group' had suddenly dwindled to less than a handful. Several people ‘graduated’ the day before, as some preferred to put it (sounds so much more accomplished than 'discharged' doesn't it?) from the intensive day program I found myself participating in.

We sat there in that room, day in and out, like mismatched socks in a drawer within a world that prefers only perfectly coordinated accessories.

Apart from the everyday, and wondering if there really is some big Cosmic Dryer out there that magically (or in the case of the paranoids, maniacally) tumbles whatever it is that is meant to be our ‘mate’ away from us and leaves us so incomplete. The thing meant to be the other half of our own brain: a person, a calling, whatever, that the evil thing sucks up some big freaking vent tube and shoots out into oblivion, never to be found by us again.

Maybe that would explain why so many of us are unraveled, solitary little socks in the great Hosiery Department that is the universe.

Threadbare, and trying to mend our seams with fairy floss and good thoughts because we can't find a needle and thread.

Of course, some in the group try to mend those holes with drugs and booze, but that has never been my style. My own brain is much too much of an out of control amusement park all on its own.

So the therapist du jour (and there were many- at least two to three different ones per day, in addition to the doctor, and for some of the others, the social workers and parole officers (again, not my gig) held the deck in her hands and went around the room asking people these questions printed on dog-eared little pieces of cardboard the size of your standard business card.

I was listening to the answers of the others so intently-- or okay, maybe it was the new medication too-- but either way, I know that she had to say my name more than once before I finally looked up from the little chair in the corner that I claimed on my first day there and sat in every day for the duration- straight back, not padded, wooden arms—and positioned squarely so no one could possibly sit behind me.

I have a thing about that. I have, as it turns out, a lot of ‘things’.

“February,” she repeated, and finally I looked up. “It’s your turn. Are you ready for your question?”

I believe my response was a semi-half-nod.

I was ready to be asked a question all right, but most of them had been pretty generic. For me, this one was anything but.

“What would you want your last words to be?”

My reaction was purely visceral. I spoke without thinking. Without hesitation. Without question.

“'I love you'.” I replied.

The handful of others in the room kind of collectively drew in a breath and held it. I don’t know why. I have to wonder if maybe they’ve not heard anyone say the words to them or even around them, aloud just like that, just so plainly in their lives and so hearing them was a shock to the system.

“…alternately,” I added suddenly, thinking more deeply about the question and all its implications, “’thank you’. Better still, all of those together. First I love you, and then thank you.”

Internally I was already having another completely visceral reaction- and tears filled my eyes.

In my mind, I was already picturing exactly who I imagined I'd be saying those last words to, and I could so clearly see that face... "Yeah," I whispered, wiping at my wet cheek with the back of my hand. "They'd be "I love you."

She nodded to me, contemplating my answer. Given that others present may have answered something like ‘You’ll be sorry,’ or worse, I guess maybe they seemed safe, or maybe just appropriate. She moved on, but it took me a long time to stop thinking about the question, and the answer. Maybe I haven't stopped, not really.

Those words, "I love you, and "Thank you." are very nearly always appropriate (unless spoken sarcastically but that's an entirely different thing than I'm talking about here.)

Today is a day when everyone is thinking a lot about the frailty of life.

About how quickly people can just vanish and be gone forever. I think about that a lot, not just on a day that so many people I am sure are writing about in more moving ways than I ever could that I won’t get into it at all, I’ll let those who are better writers and poets than I will ever be say it all instead.

Instead, I’ll tell you that a month ago (almost to the day) we lost a dear friend very suddenly.

Someone who is ‘family’ in that way only the dearest people can be. Someone so together- someone who so totally had it all at the age of thirty-two that she astounded all who knew her. The career, the marriage, family, house, happiness, she had it all. And now she's just gone.

We lost her in an accident, on a weekday afternoon when she did something she often did- something simple people the world over do every day.

She went out for a bicycle ride.

She never came home.

She never will.

No, she didn’t cause the accident. Yes, she was wearing a helmet. It’s just that helmets really can’t help you when you get hit by a truck.

They say it wasn’t anyone’s ‘fault’. It was a tragic accident.

I only hope she never knew what hit her.

Her three year old still asks when she’s coming home. I don’t know what that baby's father tells her, but knowing him I’m sure it’s something amazing, and meaningful, and loving, because that’s the kind of man that he is.

I also know it because the words he spoke at the service for his publicly proclaimed (and readily recognized by all who knew them) “soulmate” were all those things and more.

In the end, he challenged us with words I won’t forget, words that motivated my actions after we got back from that long drive out East even as my mind spun further out of control, words that continue to do so now.

No regrets.

Don’t live in fear.

Be the best you that you can be. Live your life; make her proud.

I’m trying, I swear.

So let me just say one more thing.

Don’t ever be afraid to say those words: “I love you,” or “thank you.”

Because this is world in which not only do misguided people fly airplanes into buildings but where accidents happen and wonderful women who are young wives and mothers can just go out the door intending to be gone a little while and never come home again.

Say them when you feel them, because each chance could be your last chance to say them, or to have them said to you.

Not a morbid thought.

A hopeful one.

Hopeful, because if I’m writing it and you're reading it, then it means that we’re both here to still have the chance to say those words, and so many more that can heal, and help, and comfort.

Hopeful, because if I know anything for an absolute certainty, it’s that in this world or any other that could be beyond it if you believe in such things- love and gratitude are what should always matter most.

Love reigns.

And even in this crude existence that we’re stuck in now- whether or not we ever openly admit it, at the beginning of our lives, every day in the middle and at the very end it’s love- the desire to love and know we are loved- that rules us all.

~bru