For the past week I've been low-level battling an upper respiratory infection of some species or other. My doctor is usually very cautious about this sort of thing, but he prescribed a 10-day course of antibiotics. I stayed in all last weekend to try to kick the illness, reading and watching some very good and some very bad television. Mel Brooks got my thumbs up for his great film, "The Producers."
But mostly I felt lousy all week, sitting, lying down or working. Working? I'm afraid I'm susceptible to the pokes of the Spirit of Macho urging me to slog on, no matter what. There was a recent television commercial for a cold remedy that featured NFL quarterback Drew Bledsoe, last year's Super Bowl hero. I think the slogan ran, "There are no sick days in the NFL!" Damn you, Drew Bledsoe!
Seriously, my coping with this sickness led to some dark thoughts and moments of feeling badly, indeed. Upon awakening, for instance, intimations of mortality, the realization that there will one day be an illness that will be the final one, took brief hold several times.
When I'm sick, I'm vulnerable and I feel helpless, the opposite of the power and control illusion that's usually operative in most of our lives. The reality is that death is the truth, at some point, for each of us. The odd and graceful thing about that is that embracing that truth can be incredibly liberating and enlivening. Robert Lifton once said that accepting my mortality, my certain death sooner or later, enhances my life qualitatively. Each day becomes precious, more poignantly rich and interesting.
I like that last thought, a great deal. I can endorse its truth at least when I'm not prostrated by a pesky infection. I'm off to have the vegetarian equivalent of chicken soup. Don't ask. It involves tofu and vegetable broth.
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