The Other Side of the Chair
Learning to live again when life rewrites the story.
I’m a bit nervous. This weekend, I need to select a portion of my thesis, “The Other Side of the Chair,” to read for the faculty, staff, and fellow Master of Fine Arts in Writing students at Lindenwood University. In two weeks, I’m taking the train to St. Charles, Missouri, with my mom and aunt to walk the stage at the commencement ceremony. I’ve already received my diploma in the mail, but something about opening it at the dinner table with only my cat sitting beside me felt anticlimactic. I entered the program in May of 2020 when the world shut down, except for me, my world became smaller five years before that when I got sick and my trips out of the house were to the neurologist, my general practitioner, physical and speech therapy, and multiple hospital stays, and the park or mall if I was up to it with my family to let me get a breath of fresh air and glimpse of the sky. One night, I lay on my couch, oxygen cannula in, medicated for my pain, and I felt my world stop.
Pain paused. Fright vanished. I felt I was already gone. Words from a wise friend resonated, “Sometimes death isn’t the worst thing that can happen,” when I was in tremendous pain, struggling to breathe and speak. I closed my eyes, waiting for something, I still don’t know what–death or healing. But either way, it was okay. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness in 2016 was unexpected, as my neurologist quoted Stephen Hawking, “Where there’s life, there’s hope.” I just didn’t know I’d lose most of my mobility, speech, and the ability to do the one thing needed for all of this: breathe. Air hunger was the scariest thing.
“I don’t want to suffocate,” I told my physical therapist, because who do you say that stuff to when you don’t want to scare your family? She gently continued to move my limbs. “I know Jon.” And she breathed with me.
So when healing began to reveal itself to me through many ups and downs, I told my neurologist, the one thing I can still do independently is write, even when I relapse. I entered the MFA program because no matter what happens to me, I’ll always have my voice, even if I have to tap it out on a device. Still, I am graced with the ability to walk that stage in two weeks, and I will. If you’ve seen my other writing, you know I returned to teaching for a beautiful moment of grace and hallelujah that is coming to a close because my body is whispering, 'It's time to go, Jonathan.’ My new reality is guiding me to use my voice in ways I can’t carry out in the classroom daily. A veteran colleague of mine from when I worked one-on-one told me that a new path would reveal itself, and it did. Beginning this August, my principal opened a position for me using my MFA skillset as a part-time Title I Interventionist. I still get to stay in my kids’ lives, not in the same way, but for a few hours a week, to show them how to use their voices. All this while nurturing my soul through a freelance writing and storytelling career, and possibly performing when I can.
My friend was right, sometimes dying isn’t the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing is not living.
