Bubbles sticking to the side of my glass. They stay stuck until they can hang on no more. They then quickly race to the top of my drink with so many other bubbles. I lay on my bed watching the glass of carbonated water beside my bed. I don't feel sick but I am dying. These bubbles remind me of living and dying. We stick to the sides of what ever glass we are born in and hang on for our lives. Sooner or later we slip off the glass and race up and away into oblivion. I have a problem in my brain. It is being consumed by itself. Somewhere in the middle of it, the cells have decided to rearrange themselves and rebuild in a new format. A tumor. And it isn't even worth trying to stop. How nice for me. I am not so old that one would think a tumor is understandable growing in my head. I have young ones that aren't even finished their first decade of life. That is where the pain of dying angers me the most. They know I will be leaving them but they don't know what death really means. And I am to be the one who dies and teaches them how that kind of pain and confusion feels. Another reality that makes accepting death with grace a little tougher then it sounds. It is impossible not to feel angry about this...this shit hand dealt by what...God? If only I believed in those nursery stories. It is just a shit hand and I got it.

I am still strong and fit. It is a slap in the face to die this way. You are suppose to be used up and wilted when you die, not ready to run a road race. The only bad things I have to endure are waves of dizziness and some nausea. I am told I have occasions when I seem to turn off and just stare into space and beyond. Sometimes that happens for only a few seconds, other times it lasts for minuets. Either way, I have no recollection of it. Most of the time I feel normal enough. One thing that I don't talk about much are my dreams. They are my own and aren't visible and so public as the rest of my dying self. Doctors don't test for them and they don't show up on the floor for someone else to find. They have been getting more and more graphic as this tumor grows in my head. So graphic that it takes me some time to figure out when they are finished and the waking world has begun again. I have decided to write some of them down for you to find when I am dead and buried. This dream in particular helped me in so many ways move away from the anger and live stronger before I die.

I woke at some point last night and large tears were streaming from the corners of my closed eyes. I think I was awake for only a few seconds and the sleep world pulled me back in. In my dream I was laying dead on my bed. My two little ones sat on the bed with me and they were crying hysterically. There was no one else coming to comfort them as they continued to cry. They cried out my name many times. Not daddy, they used my name..that was strange. To see your children grabbing at your lifeless hands and holding them to their bodies while crying out for you to come back is so terrible hard to endure. You can't imagine it until you are there. And it felt like I was there. I could feel their little hands on my hands and feel their breath on my face as they got closer to yell for me to wake up and hug them and tell them what they should do. They cried out questions like don't I love them anymore and did I die because they weren't good enough. They made promises that they would be good every day if I would come back. But I was dead and couldn't move or talk to them. I couldn't tell them that I loved them and that it wasn't their fault. That they were the best children I could ever have asked for. I couldn't hug them and let them know it was okay to miss me when I was gone and that I would miss them so very much to and that they weren't alone. I wanted to help them deal with my death and it was too late for me to do so. I laid there and endured that pain for a long time.

Then I woke briefly, as I said, with tears falling from closed eyes and my mind reeling only to fall in a more bizarre but less painful dream.

I was still laying dead in my bed. My young ones no longer were there with me. I was alone in the dark. I could see myself in full form and at the same time see from inside my dead body. Still I was not able to move. I was dead. There was a sound of crunching and my chest burst outward. I could see my ribs and muscle and flesh in that hole. Out of the hole a large pair of hands reached. They grasped the edges of the hole and started to pull the bone and flesh inward, making the hole bigger. I was trapped in my body and could only watch the hands do their work. When the hole was as big as it could be short of tearing me in two, the hands withdrew back inside of me. A grim light began to glow inside my collapsed chest and with it, two small men crawled out. They where gray in color and stood about three inches high. They moved up to my head and sat facing one another on my chin. Their feet dangled in my mouth that was frozen open in what must have been my final attempt to breathe before death. I could see it all so clearly. They began to shout at each other. They screamed back and forth, "God, Bah, who is God?!" "What kind of stupid question is this?!" "Ain't stupid, I just don't believe!" "You have believed all your life!" "No I haven't! I have never believed!" "You fool, you just don't know that you have believed in God!" "Now that is stupid!" "It ain't stupid, you have walked with God your whole life! It doesn't matter if you saw it or not!" "The hell you say!" "Your meager brain can't offend God...no matter what it tries to say!" "My meager brain is all I am!" "HA! Spoken like a meager brain would speak! Like I said, it doesn't matter! When your meager brain is dead, you will see that God and you are in the same skin!" "Bah! We will see then won't we!" With that, they both jumped up and marched back into the hole that was my chest. My chest slammed closed like a door whipped shut by the wind and I woke. I laid unmoving for a time before I was certain enough that I wasn't still sleeping or worse, already dead.

As I make peace with my dying, I find myself thinking about life more often. I think about it more now then I ever did when I wasn't dying. I have given thought to whether or not it matters if a person believes themselves a good person or not; Whether a person believes in God or not. I don't think it does matter. The top of that glass you are born into is very large and there is no place else you can go when you let go of its sides. You can't miss the opening. In my dream that I shared, I heard the little gray men say it doesn't matter what you believe, it is still God that is in you. Not as a being, but as a part of you beyond the flesh form. Maybe that space at the top of the glass is God...and you just can't miss God.

I decided to talk with my children about what is happening to me and what will happen. I have assured them that they are wonderful children and that I will love them as much when I am gone as I do while I am still here. I keep assuring them... I don't think they can hear it enough times. We three have opened the door of talk whenever it is needed to express feelings or concerns. They are very young but it is amazing how much they are able to comprehend and adjust to. I know they will still be very sad when I am gone and we have talked about that. It is okay to be sad and its okay to cry and its okay to talk to others about those feelings so they never feel alone. I am glad my children and I have had the chance to talk about this. The dream I shared showed me I was being selfish in anger and not helping them the way I should. The dream has also made it easier to believe there is more left for us then oblivion when we die. I am not eager to die by any means. But I am more prepared for it and that I thank the powers that be for that.

This tumor has my number and it will force me to answer the call of death. I am not angry about that anymore. I see that it was going to happen regardless at some point...that is, I mean dying. What is most important is to stay attached to the things that count the most. The things on the inside. Things like love of your children. There is nothing you can take with you when you go on the outside. I am certain the feelings you hold onto on the inside remain fastened to you... Remain fastened to your spirit. I will miss the people I love, my children most of all. But I know this, while my little ones sleep and dream, I will still be able to play with them and watch them grow. That same spirit that is in me, God is a suitable word for that to me now, is the same spirit that is in them. It is in that spirit that I will always be with my children. It brings tears of joy to my eyes even now as I write it. My children will be okay. That night I dreamed the dream I have shared with you was the turning point for me. I thank the powers that be for showing me how to do it right...How to die not in anger but in peace. Death won't change my love for my own and I am relieved so much by that. When I die, I die knowing I lived well...to the end..and that is good.