Premonitions and Teddy Bears -- My Search For Meaning and Comfort

Back when I had my head surgery, several churches from my hometown sent me prayer cloths. It made me feel rather awkward. On the one hand, I was humbled that they would care about me or take an interest in my medical problems. But on the other hand, it was as if they were asking me to participate in a kind of magic act that I had no use for. I thought that either the surgeons would be successful in removing the tumor, or they wouldn’t. I would either live through the surgery, or I wouldn’t. What ever will be will be.

I just couldn’t bring myself to believe that my life made much of a difference in the larger scheme of things. Of course I wanted to live, but I couldn’t imagine the universe being reordered just so I could. I couldn’t even imagine asking for such a thing. And I also wondered what these people who had given me the prayer cloths were really up to. Most of them had never given me the time of day before. I was facing the possibility of my own extinction, and it felt like maybe they were asking me to affirm their faith before I jumped off into the abyss.

I was instructed to take the prayer cloths with me into surgery, but I just couldn’t, not even out of politeness. It simply wasn’t my reality, and if the day of my surgery was going to be my last day of consciousness, I sure as hell wasn’t going to spend it pretending to be someone I wasn’t. So I left the prayer cloths at my apartment. (Later I found the nerve to throw them away. That took a while, and not because I actually believed they had any power, but because throwing them away seemed rude somehow.)

I did make it through surgery, but I was in ICU for a while after that, and my hold on life didn’t seem secure. I was so weak I couldn’t hold my head off of my pillow. I couldn’t turn or move. And I was in pain. I’ll never forget how alone, empty and helpless I felt, especially that first night after the surgery, after I had been out of it for more than eighteen hours. Even thinking about it terrifies me. It seemed as if I was on the edge of a cliff and I could fall at any moment. It may have been comforting to believe something was holding me back, or at least waiting to catch me if I did fall...because I had intrinsic value and worth. But I had no such comforting thoughts. While lying there, I felt like a piece of garbage about to be thrown away.

That’s the way I felt when I was in that situation, but if you ask me about it now, I can’t say with any certainty that we live in a cold and indifferent universe. I sincerely hope that we do not. And I experienced something before the surgery that makes me wonder. About a year before I was diagnosed, I had a dream, a nightmare. In the dream I saw myself lying helpless in a hospital bed. It was so disturbing to me that I awoke and sat straight up. I knew I wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep right away, so I went into the living room. While I waited for my nerves to settle, a strong belief came to me. I knew I had a brain tumor. I knew it. But I didn’t want to face this, so I stopped going to the doctor. For a year, I avoided medical treatment of any kind. But eventually I started losing my hearing, and I had to go. They did a series of tests, and eventually I was given an MRI. I never said anything about my belief throughout this process, but the whole time I was thinking that eventually they would find the brain tumor. And they did.

So why was I warned of this tumor? I spent most of my twenties in a state of suicidal depression, and I suspect that if I had been told I had a brain tumor a few years before, I would have seen it as my cue to exit. By the time I was 30, my moods were starting to even out, but I still wasn’t the most emotionally stable person around. So maybe I was warned so I could prepare myself. Maybe I needed the extra time so I could accept what was about to happen to me. Maybe I needed to be reminded that I didn’t really want to die. Who knows? I certainly don’t.

There was a little girl at the hospital who had her tonsils out the same day I had my head surgery. I saw her in the pre-op area. She was clinging to her teddy bear. The teddy bear gave her comfort even though it seems unfathomable that a soft, fuzzy toy could have any bearing on the outcome of her surgery. Maybe for some, prayer cloths are like teddy bears. Maybe prayer cloths are adult teddy bears. I don’t know. But as long as it’s not hurting me, I can’t see any harm in allowing others to have their teddy bears. The next time I’m on the slab, I might want to have a teddy bear that I can believe in.

I can’t say if life has any intrinsic meaning or purpose, but I suspect that if it does, then the whole of it is meaningful and purposeful, not just those parts we like. Maybe tumors and earthquakes have as much purpose as sunshine and laughter. Maybe. I don’t believe that anyone fully understands.

I am prepared to let others have their prayer cloths and teddy bears, but I would appreciate it if I was allowed to come to my own conclusions and to make my own peace with this crazy, scary, exciting, funny, sometimes cruel, sometimes beautiful mystery that we’re all a part of in my own way.