Week 15 - ending 4/15: The Will to Live

The desire and will to live.

Will is defined as the faculty by which a person decides on and initiates action.

Desire is defined as a strong feeling or wanting to have something or wishing for something to happen.

I have a neighbor who is a retired, widowed woman. She never had children of her own but her husband had children from a previous relationship that she is sometimes in contact with.

A few months ago she went on a bucket list trip to the middle east. Upon returning home she got very sick and ended up in the hospital for several days. When she was discharged she needed a cane to walk and had to have oxygen on all the time. The doctors told her she could eventually stop using the cane and oxygen, however, it would take a lot of hard work and several months because of being in her mid 70's.

Everyday she took her cane and went for a walk. She also moved around her house as much as possible and within 3 1/2 weeks she was off the oxygen and didn't need the cane anymore. The doctors were surprised when they wanted to refill her oxygen supply, but instead, she asked them to remove the tanks.

It has been several months and she is still healthy, walking daily and doing very well. She has a desire and the corresponding will to live.

I think about it often, as I find it difficult to have the desire and necessary will to live sometimes. There are days, I lay in bed as much as possible, struggling to find the point of anything.

In 2016 I got very sick. I went to the ER and ended up needing emergency surgery. During the process from wheeling me to surgery through to the recovery room I remember a few specific moments.

The first was while I was waiting to enter the operating room. The nurses kept asking me questions, forcing me to talk. They would pull anyone and everyone over to ask me questions. I later learned that it was because I was so sick, if I had fallen asleep, which I was trying to do, I could have slipped into a coma.

I am not sure when or why the second moment occurred. I remember being out and then I woke up to the nurses and doctors yelling over me, "breathe! breathe! Come on I need you to breathe!" I heard them and became aware that I was not breathing. I remember looking out the windows of the operating room and admiring the beauty of the mountains of 'Aiea Heights. I was jolted from my gaze by the oxygen mask being placed over my nose and mouth. I then felt my lungs and chest expand as I took a breath. A few seconds later everything was black again.

The final moment was just waking in the recovery room. My initial reaction to waking from anesthesia is anger, however, once I see someone I am calm again.

After that surgery, I had the most difficult and scary recovery of my life. I could barely walk and was very afraid of getting sick again or still being sick when I left the hospital.

Since then, when difficult things happen to me, I think about that time and wonder how close I was to not living through it. I reminisce with mixed emotions sometimes wishing things had gone another way. Nonetheless, when I struggle with the desire to live I think of that time, I think of my neighbor and I think of the things I need to pull me out of a rut. Water, fresh to drink, salt to swim in; Sunshine, to feel on my skin; Silence, in the form of meditation and grounding; Gratitude, for what was, what is and what is to come.

When I observe my thoughts, experiences and emotions from a space of non-attachment life gets calmer, simpler and happier. Perhaps the perceived coldness I used to feel from people who lived that way was just my reflection. In fact, they aren't cold at all. They are abundant with warmth, joy and love and maybe those who express so much emotion are the ones with the most coldness, just trying to fill an empty space.