Writer treasures life's joys

By Steven Olson
Correspondent

When people ask "How ya' doin'?" it's a little different for me than the usual courtesy. In my case, a lot of people really want an answer.

You see, I almost died six years ago. Not almost died of embarrassment or anything like that. I mean the real enchilada. While sitting at my computer, I felt a weird little ping in my head - like a hose busting and water pouring out--but it really wasn't that dramatic. It was just a ping. Then my vision started rolling like a bad vertical hold on a black-and-white TV set. (If you are unfamiliar with vertical hold, ask someone around 50. They'll know.)

I had a cerebral hemorrhage--serious stuff. These things usually happen to people in their 80s. Trust me to be 40 years ahead of my time. It came really close to killing me, and I mean really close. My wife held consent forms and a pen in her hands. That's how close I was to being disassembled for spare parts before the folks at Poudre Valley Hospital saved my life. I have never thanked my wife, Tanya, more for being unable to sign her name.

When you come out of something like this, your world expands like a kid blowing up a new balloon, but it takes a while. I felt constricted for three years, and then the world became a little bigger, a little more in focus. When this first happened to me, my world was limited to just the room I was in. Those four walls were all that my mind seemed able to encompass. I knew there was much more beyond the door. That was the scary part--the notion that this was all I'd ever be able to take in.

I'd have a couple of days where I felt the area I did have mastery of was shrinking. The first time that happened, I wondered if everything bad was back after having just gone out for a smoke. Then things would lift, and the world would be bigger. It was like I had a circle of competence around me that was getting bigger...and bigger...and bigger. It really was a great feeling, as if I could see further and further. I didn't have to think out each step before taking it; mustard kept the same taste it had last month. I have endless metaphors for the experience (slowly climbing out of a well, fighting my way out of a wrapping of thick gauze, digging out of the grave) but the kid with a balloon one seems the most apropos just now.

Now that I survived and am not a vegetable--I can still see and can still drive--I ask what I learned from this episode other than an immense appreciation of my own mortality.

I suppose the first thing was the realization I got an honest-to-God second chance. I get a chance to try to correct a lot of dumb mistakes. I obviously can't do all of them, but I can try to do some. I am a living, breathing, walking symbol of the fact that these things aren't always fatal and that's a great, if humbling, thing to know.

Second, I have a newfound appreciation that life is just too short. I suppose I was headed that way anyway, since I am just shy of 50, but the fact that my life almost ended at 44 gave me a sense of "time left." I don't suffer fools gladly. I just don't have the time. I work at being polite and hope I am not rude, but the fact of the matter is that if I think you are a fool and can't physically leave, my mind will go bye-bye and I will not pay much attention to what you have to say.

Third, I remember who was there and who wasn't when I was dying. I suppose that sounds melodramatic, but it takes on stark significance when you come as close as I did to having 6 feet of dirt for a roof. There was a medical fund that was started up for me after "The Accident." I still have the cards of every person who wished me well and remember all of them. I don't know if I ever thanked them all, so I'm taking this opportunity to tell them now.

Fourth, and this is the hard one to succinctly explain, I get to see the light behind the drapes brighten and get stronger every morning. That means it's another sunrise I otherwise wouldn't have had a chance to see. I have a newfound, fierce joy of writing that flows through my veins like liquid fire. I actually like seeing a blank screen and filling it with words about almost anything. I liked it before, but now I really like it. I think it has to do with the realization that I could have been a helpless invalid who couldn't even spell "cat," and I'm not. I write for other publications, and I even write for myself. I have two books on the fire right now.

There is a quiet joy in these words: I'm not spare parts.

Steven Olson lives in Wellington and writes for the North Forty News, among other publications.