Things to Do Before You Die

By Geoff Norman, Men’s Health

Item number one: Keep in mind that it may happen sooner than you think

As near-death experiences go, it was nothing to shout about. I'd gone into the hospital one summer morning for a little outpatient surgery. I was having severe nosebleeds -- the kind where you're actually in danger of bleeding out. The operation was going to fix the problem by clipping the artery that kept leaking. It was such a routine procedure that I'd made plans for that evening.

The anesthesiologist and I did a little ritual bantering. He pretended to laugh when I said, "Make mine a double," and then I was out.

Next thing I remember is trying to sit up in bed and saying, "I can't breathe."

The focus on that one isn't very clear. The next one is sharper: The surgeon is looking down at me, obvious concern on his face, saying, "You've had a cardiac arrest."

I was thirsty, and my throat hurt when I answered, profoundly, "Oh." Then I slipped back into the darkness that had almost swallowed me.

Another morning came. I awoke just after dawn and had trouble, for a minute, remembering where I was. Then I saw the catheter tube, the leads from the heart monitor, and the other reminders. I flexed my hands and curled my toes.

I no longer felt the sense of cold dread that had crept into bed with me during the night. No more self-pitying images of my grieving wife and daughters. Just the sweet sensation of being alive at dawn on a beautiful summer morning.

Of course, the moment didn't last. My brain stepped in and spoiled everything.

I began thinking.

It took a totally predictable form: Okay, Hoss. You've been granted a reprieve. Now what are you going to make of it?

Like most people, I suppose, I've made the occasional list of "things to do before I die." The lists are aspirational and vain and make a sort of statement about who you think you are and the kind of interesting and consequential life you would have lived -- and still might -- if things had been a little different:

1. Climb the Matterhorn
2. Read Proust
3. Have a suit made on Savile Row
4. Drink a Bellini at Harry's Bar
5. Shoot grouse in Scotland on the Glorious Twelfth
6. See a living great white shark

And so forth.

But as I lay in the ICU, enjoying the dawn, I did not dream of some mythic climb I needed to make in order to be fulfilled. Still . . . the prospect of returning to the mountains, any mountains, was sweet.

Some items on the list are there just to make you feel good about yourself. After a certain age, the arithmetical truth is that you've had more than enough time to read Proust. You could have easily knocked off Remembrance of Things Past in the time you've spent watching football on television. Could have learned French and read it in its original language. So it isn't about time. That item is on the list so you can think of yourself as sensitive and literary. You have, in short, been bullshitting yourself.