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What is "realization" anyway?
When my dad was dying of cancer and in the hospital, a nurse, seeing his fingernails were blue told my mom, who was there, that she should tell me to come home NOW because it wouldn't be too long. I flew home from Berkeley that day upon getting the phone call. I went to his hospital bed but he was unconscious. I stayed up all that night with him there, my mom was there too but had fallen asleep in a chair. It was about 5:30 AM. He had 'made it ...through the night' I thought, because the body is at its lowest physiological spot at about 4:30 AM and then starts to rally to wake up at dawn. (See what a doctorate in science will do for you!).
My dad's lungs were filling up. His breath was labored. With everyone of them he was gurgling. Mom, asleep in the adjacent chair to his bed, I watched him there in bed, with a blank mind in that witness mode. With each breath the gurgling became less and less. My mind was clear, I wasn't thinking what it mean. It sounded like a big jug that you were pouring water out, and air gurgled into the jus through its small neck as the emptying water stopped for a second to let it in. Less and less and less as the night went by.
Then, suddenly, the gurgling stopped. I noticed it, but wasn't thinking about it. Suddenly, it occurred to me! The jug is full. His lungs were now full of fluid! It was ending. No more air . . . No more breath . . . getting in!
I woke up my mom and told her that if she wanted to say goodbye NOW was the time. He had less that a couple minutes, if he had even that at all. She did but didn't cry in front of me. Then she excused herself to go into the bathroom of that hospital room and close the door. I could hear her in there quietly crying for a few minutes before returning to the room. My mom was a tough woman when he wanted to be. While she was In there, I went to the window and looked out. The dawning sun, big and orange, had just cleared the roof tops of the adjacent buildings. We both left that hospital room to go home, to waiting relatives. But before I left, about 15 minutes after the gurgling had stopped, I laid my hand on his forehead to say a final goodbye. He was already noticeably cooler.
I was raised a Catholic early in life. They talked about the Holy Spirit in their trilogy. Spirit in Greek means air . . . in this case breath. Clearly, it had left my dad at that instant. I suppose I could believe "oh, it went to heaven". But the truth is he just quit breathing. He died. Anything beyond that is a mental projection on my part.
They also say not to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. And I can't argue with that. Don't blaspheme "life" . . . as it occurs with each breath keeping you alive . . . Because life in my mind, at least, it's the best thing going . . .
