Everything Balances Pt. 1

Nearly eight years ago I witnessed my first (and only) death.

I don’t even know if I should write about it. Whatever I say won’t be enough to do it justice — I still don’t understand it.

At the time there were strange, spiritual connections I refused to accept. I was in the peak of my hardcore Atheist denial, where only literal, tangible things were allowed to register.

If you’re an atheist and I sound like a corny sellout who got soft and scared — that’s fine. I’m not writing for you, and I’m not going to justify myself, because frankly, you’re just not there yet.

I say this genuinely: I pity you. I’ve been you. I know the anger, the avoidance, the arrogance. I won’t argue with it. No one converted me — it would’ve been impossible. You see the spiritual as a lie people tell themselves rather than a profound expansion of reality.

Maybe there’ll come a point when you realize how hard you’re fighting against yourself — or maybe you’ll go mad. Maybe both are necessary to climb out stronger and face the bigger questions. Anyway, I digress.

At the time I delivered packages. It was the best paying job I’d ever had.

The most authority I’d ever had. Everyone was proud of me — other productive people waved and smiled. I felt like I’d finally managed to blend in and appear normal.

Little did they know, I was hanging on for dear life and bungling it at every turn.

I’d drive miles down the busiest road in town before realizing the rear door on my truck was swinging wide open in the wind. No one reported missing items. No one posted me online.

So it wasn’t if I’d lose the job, it was when. For how long could I keep up the charade?

At night, after speeding through icy neighborhoods all day, I’d have fall asleep with a sick feeling that disaster was looming. I sorted packages in my sleep, while I tossed and turned and woke up in a puddle of sweat.

Meanwhile, the tougher-than-hell women I worked with couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get the hang of it. I was the eye-candy idiot. I caught them looking at my butt and one said I looked like an extra from Magic Mike.

There were times I felt deeply unsettled by the sexual harassment of one specific creepy woman, but that’s a tale for another time...

Side Note

I think part of my consistent failures came from the loser energy I brought to the job.

For the atheists: go ahead, roll your eyes — we’re back in woo-woo territory.
But listen to the semi-old man here when I say: those stupid self-help books are actually right.

Your thoughts shape the world you inhabit. If you can change your thoughts, you can change your life. Easier said than done.

That’ll be fifteen dollars, please.

I always thought the crystal-wearing astrology girls were the epitome of ignorance, and I’ll bet my aura sucked to them, too.

Back to the Story

I was in a hell of my own making.

Wake up. Sort the packages. Load the packages. Deliver package after package after package — icy roads, endless gathering of signatures.

People did this for thirty years and called it a life. I wasn’t brave enough to say it then, so I’ll say it now: FUCK THAT SHIT.

Drone work.

And good for you if you can do it. You gotta make a living some how right?

I’d rather beat my head against a wall until my teeth come out.

It wasn’t the labor that sucked; it was the slow comfortable march toward the grave that made it terrifying and rage-inducing.

Somewhere around stop number fifty, I dropped a package on a doorstep and turned to leave.

Then I heard banging on an upstairs window.

A figure waved frantically with both arms.

Weird.

I waved back, pointed to the porch — “Package is right there!”
But he didn’t stop. Something told me to open the door.

I went inside, calling out as I jogged up the stairs. At the landing, I froze.

A man sat hunched over in a hospital bed, clutching the tubes that ran from his nose to a big tank on the floor.

Aw, fuck.

I rushed up to him, not sure what to do. He whispered and pointed at the tank. His arms looked heavy, his breath shallow.

In a few seconds I figured out how to swap the tank. I don’t know how.

He gestured, maybe at a wrench. I just did it.

It was too visceral to remember clearly. I processed it, dumped it, made room for what came next.

This guy is dying.
My heart rate didn’t spike. I just handled it.

Once the new tank was running good, he gave me a thumbs up.

I thought, Hey. Maybe this guy won’t die. Maybe I’m a hero.

But his breathing didn’t recover. His eyes darted, afraid.

He wanted me to stay. I think he even said that — “Wait. Stay.”

In retrospect, I think he knew. When he banged on that window — he was asking for company for what was about to happen.

I watched his eyes roll back, and I tried to catch him as he turned to jelly and fell backward on the bed.

He was heavy — soft and impossible to prop up.

I called emergency services. They coached me through chest compressions, but it was futile. I was exhausted, pressing into his chest, wrapping my arms around him.

I’ve never been closer to another man.

The EMTs arrived. I sat on the floor, invisible, listening as they talked. As selfish as it seems now, at that moment I wanted someone to ask me what I thought — to acknowledge what I’d seen — but to them, this was normal shit. Another stop, and probably one of the easier ones.

It occurred to me that they probably liked their jobs more than I liked mine.

I went back to the delivery center and smoked a cigarette. My mom came by. Everyone who wasn’t delivering packages gathered around in a semi-circle, not sure what to say.

“…We really gotta get those packages out,” my boss muttered, rubbing his head.

I nodded, got back in the truck, and finished the day.

Later, he told me he went home and cried. At least one of us did.

The EMTs called to apologize for not checking on me.
They said I seemed calm — they thought I was fine.
I told them I really was fine. I kept it to myself that it bothered me how fine I was.

They said I might make a good EMT.
I said I thought so too.

That was the hardest part — the lack of impact.

I thought or hoped it would wreck me. I thought I’d at least cry. I mean, damnit, I saw a man turn from a living soul into a pile of meat, and yet… I felt strangely okay.

Maybe that was the point. Maybe I wasn’t sad because I recognized it. Deep down, I already believed in something beyond the body, even when I was playing the role of an atheist.

When I saw his soul leave, I knew what it was.

I wasn’t afraid for him; I knew he’d be alright.

I was grateful to have been there — and I’m sure, on some cosmic level, we were bound by it.

Yes. What happened next made that abundantly clear.

Years later, in my new self-employed life, I got a call to visit a client.
As I drove down the road, a thought crossed my mind: Wouldn’t it be funny if…

I turned the corner and realized where I was. Same house.

A little old woman stood on the porch — lonely, the loneliest woman in the world. I knew her lonely story.
And yet somehow, defying all logic, she seemed to know me, too.

I stepped out of the car, said hello, then started right in.
“So, I dropped off a package here years ago,” I said. “I went upstairs and—”

She nodded, seemingly unsurprised by my words.
“You were here with my husband,” she said. “I knew I shouldn’t leave. Something told me…”
She shook her head. “I left for half an hour to get his medication, and I got the call.”

She looked at me like someone who’s been waiting a long time for an answer.
“I always wanted to know what happened. Can you tell me?”

So I did.

Funny thing — I told all this later to the person who’d hired me for the job.
They just blinked and said, “Oh really? Did you manage to finish the—”
and went right back to business.

I never knew what that meant — their indifference, or anyone’s.
Maybe it just means people have a very strange relationship with death.

Before I left, his wife gave me a copy of his memoir.
He’d known for a long time that he was dying. He’d had plenty of time to decide what it all meant — and what story he wanted to leave behind.

To be continued in Part 2.

This is my award for being a person who was present for the death of another person. I received a $100 bonus.