The suicide last week of Robin Williams was a total bummer to most of the planet. I'm pretty sure African Ebola patients, and those Iraqi Yazidis who weren't busy trying to leave town before ISIS arrived even heard the news, though I doubt many of them had ever heard of Robin Williams. I can truly understand how and why he made the decision he did. Even if an autopsy reveals more than what we already know about the master of comedy, his decision to take his own life reveals how brutally sudden those we love can be taken away from us without warning. In my own life and experience, I have also been in that deep, dark hole we call depression. My episodes of depression are thankfully short lived, and usually directly tied to an unhappy event immediately preceding. I have also experienced anxiety, but gratefully not to the extent that requires therapy or medication. Most of the major events in my life of the past few years, though painful physically or psychologically, did NOT evoke any episode of major depression or anxiety. I have no idea why.
I was pleasantly vindicated to realize that even meeting Jesus was not as awe inspiring as I had been led to believe it would be. All of my life from birth, I have been told in no uncertain terms how joyful, pleasant, evocative it would be to meet the son of God face to face. I imagine he is very busy, as much as the old man is probably, but when my turn came, he failed to make the appointment. I can say this because I underwent open heart surgery last April. During the course of that procedure, it becomes necessary to actually stop the patient's heart long enough to complete the procedure. Within that period of time, though a heart/lung machine takes over the vital function of moving oxygenated blood through your body, and especially the brain, the heart itself is no longer beating. Immediately before, and then again after the procedure, when the heart is supposed to restart itself and take over again, the individual is clinically dead. Despite what certain religious neurologists and little boys think, there will be NO ONE there to meet you at the Pearly Gates, whether you have an invitation or not. We came from the ions and atoms that make up everything around us, and we will return to that consistency when we can no longer keep it from happening......even as I write, my ex girlfriend's brother (or at least some of him) is mixing with the limestone and water that make up Mammoth Cave Kentucky, a place he reportedly enjoyed visiting while alive.
