Is This All There Is?

An unusual occurrance took place last week. I was seeing double and unable to hold a fork in my fingers and additionally couldn't focus on my conversation and therefore couldn't complete a sentence. What's happening I said to myself? Thanks to the bullying of a near by neighbor, he convinced me that I needed to get to a hospital. I prevailed on my daughter to drive there and I was taken into the Emergency immediately. It turned out my blood/sugar had plummeted to a reading of 31---unheard of!!After pumping some sweet stuff into an open IV I was placed in a square surrounded by curtains. In an adjacent cubicle such as mine, I could hear an elderly woman rambling on in an hallucinatory manner. A short time later as I was drowsily lying there wondering if they were going to move me to a room, I heard a slight rustling as if someone had entered the room. Not wanting to exert too much energy, I opened one eye to see if someone was there. There was!! I saw an elderly woman with a long face, a long droopy nose and yellowish hair hanging below her shoulders. My first thought was it must be the woman next door that had wandered into my room by mistake. An immediate next thought that flashed through my mind was the question"Is this all there is"?At my age I give some minor thought to my own mortality and this was a rather shocking revelation. No bands of Angels to carry me to an upper level? No crowds of friends and relatives welcoming me to the next phase? At this point I thought I had better open both eyes to see what was going on. My life may not have been one of perfection but didn't I deserve something more than an elderly woman who was just staring at me without a sound. Now that I was wide awake I looked again but the woman had disappeared and it was then I realized what I had seen was an impression created by the patterning and coloring of the drapes surrounding my area. There was no woman, just my sleepy impression of one. However, that fleeting impression has left me with a prevailing thought--- What, if indeed, this is all there is when I step into this next stage and all the mysteries that have been created by various philosophers, ministers and the like who don't have a clue as to what will take place. And so I leave you with the haunting possibility and a question"Is This All There Is"?

NO LONGER A BOY TENOR

I was in the 8th grade when Mrs Schneider took an interest in me --or my singing voice to be correct. I sat in the first row and suddenly she was standing next to me. Now, I have always been a fairly confident boy ( cocky might also be appropriate) but she had a hairdue that looked like a birds nest; even a large bird. But sing away I did, not quite knowing why she was so close to me. Had I done something? Was I to be punished ? The class ended and it was the last class of the day so when she asked me to stay over, I had some real concerns. She moved over to the piano and asked me to sing a scale. You remember Do Re Mi don't you? She was seated at the piano and I was finally in a positiion to look down into her hair Much to my relief there were no birds there.This may sound silly and I suppose it is but most of us in her class often wondered about that. Wonder no more: I will explain to my classmates the full scoop. Back to the piano where she now has some popular music in front of her. She asked that I begin to sing some of it. I was quite familiar with most of it and so I sang away, when suddenly my voice began to change. I struggled to stay on pitch and she looked at me and said "Well Jimmie, we will have to enter you as a tenor". I looked at her and asked, "Enter me where?" She replied, "There is a voice contest coming up in 6 weeks and I would like to enter you into it". I looked at her, somewhat amazed and said, "Mrs Schneider, I don't know how to sing!!" Once again she replied, "Jimmie you have a lovely voice and by the end of 6 weeks you will be prepared to be the best in the city". "Wow" said I, totally at a point of confusion. That began my career in voice which scaled to the height of mediocrity. Since that day, I have sung most of the rest of my life---Glee clubs, Choirs, a Men only group, funerals and weddings. I entertained on the stage of the High School and, oh yes, I came in second at the city wide contest. I actually had begun my career on the stage at age 4 where I sang "Ice Cream, you scream, we all scream for Ice cream". My grandmother had sent me up there so she could win a bag of groceries or 6 dinner plates. I had to do it the next week also, so she would have a total of 12 dinner plates. My career started very early and would you believe, I am still singing in various groups but am wise enough to never sing solo again. I am now on oxygen and my voice sounds like a crow had escaped into the air. It's a man of learning that knows when to quit.