II- Leap of Faith
Jalisco, Mexico
“Let me just tell you, there’s no such thing as hell.” A good friend of mine told me when I was 28, married and with two kids. Right there and then in her living room I decided to believe her. It was a leap of faith in reverse, like a movie on rewind where the woman returns to her place on the precipice of a cliff just before she jumps.
I felt scared giving up on hell but wanted to rid myself of the familiar fear that still popped into my life at random times. Sometimes the fear manifested in the form of screaming dreams. The dreams, although not frequent were terrifying and played out in the same cat and mouse way every time.
I’m walking down a back alley at night. A man appears out of the shadows. I run, he follows. I feel his hot breath on my neck. As he is about to pounce I wake, screaming.
At 56, I don’t get those dreams anymore. I’ve done enough work, lived long enough and just stood on enough ledges to have overcome my fear of hell. However, the effects of growing up in a religious home still play out from time to time in my everyday life. The consequences are just more subtle and infiltrate with more stealth.
For example, at the beginning of this year, I found myself in a dreadful heightened state after not sleeping the night before major surgery. I ubered to the hospital on my own because of Omicron (Oma Krahn for those of you Mennos out there) raging in Toronto. I met with a nurse, he took my vitals, handed me blue scrubs and told me to wait in the waiting room.
Within five minutes the surgeon approached. Hmm, I thought, this is nice, he’s come to greet me.
But instead, "I’m sorry” with his body just a little too close and probably so other’s in the room could not hear, “but we will not be able to do the surgery as your payment has not come through.”
“What?!”
It’s true I had messed up, blame it on my ADHD, blame it on the fact that the surgery had to be rescheduled three times or blame it on the missing dot in the surgeon’s email. In any case the surgery was not going to happen unless the money came through within the next hour.
In the hospital foyer, already in scrubs, I reacted in full survival mode. What was going to happen to my vital signs now? I thought. I ran to the elevator to search for the kind office assistant who had greeted me. Was she on the fifth floor? Covid rules forbade floor to floor contact so each time I tried to get to another floor in search of her I was spewed back out onto the ground floor. All the while, I called everyone who might be able to help— an anonymous RBC representative, my bank manager, friends. Visiting patients/guests alike glared at me as I pleaded, begged and left messages in a voice much too loud for a calming hospital setting.
After a stop at coronary care, ICU, oncology I made it back to the 8th, surgery.
I stood in the middle of the waiting room staring at the phone hoping for a response from someone, anyone. I composed my final text, giving a friend the number for the office assistant hoping the two of them could figure out my dilemma. Before I pressed the last send a nurse approached, frowned and said, “Follow me, and for God’s sake put your phone away!”
I continued to compose the text. Furious, the nurse stomped off. Had I lost my place in the surgical line up? I pressed send one last time, deposited the phone in the locker and ran to catch up with the petulant nurse.
“I’m sorry I’ve never done anything like this before, please forgive me.” She ignored me and instead led me to the gurney where I was to wait for further instructions. Shamefully, I crawled onto the precipice.
I curled up on my side, closed my eyes and began to mutter, “Dear God.” But as quickly as the urge came it was thwarted by a thought, “Sandra, you don’t believe in God.”
I felt as if I’d stepped off a cliff and was plunging into the abyss. A feeling not unlike I’d felt so many times before when I’d fucked up.
Miraculously another thought dropped in. “Sandy, God’s not going to show up, you’re just going to have to trust the people around you.”
It was an atheistic revelation.
I took a deep breath, then another and allowed my body to focus on the sensations of the air going deep into my belly, my chest rose and fell, over and over, again and again. I flipped onto my back, sat up and looked around the room. I focused on the surroundings. Curtains—dark blue and burgundy, smooth shower curtain texture, male nurse’s skull cap—green palm fronds, red parrot. The worst case scenario, I reminded myself, would be to go home and sleep off this dreadful early morning fiasco.
Within the hour the surgeon reappeared, and with a comforting touch, he grabbed my toe and confirmed the payment had gone through. “Now let’s take a look.” he said as he lowered my gown.
