On Sleep

Growing up, the time right before I fell asleep was always my favorite time of day. After a hectic day, there was something magical about being still. You can’t rush falling asleep, and I never did – I would be alone with my thoughts until the new day’s challenges would come.

My favorite prayer – at least one of them – comes from the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. I remember it echoing around a nearly empty Cathedral on so many late afternoons, with only a boys’ choir and the stained glass to hear it. I suppose it sums up what I wished for in sleep

O Lord, support us all day long until the shadows lengthen and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in thy mercy grant us a safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last (BCP 833).

My nights now are a little different. About every third night, while on-call in the hospital, a busy day makes one excited for a few hours rest. But sleeping right next to a pager – a pager that is sure to go off at any moment with something as trite as a Tylenol order to something as magnanimous as a gun shot wound to the chest – sort of ruins the tranquility of that time of day. Sleep is now rather anxious.

I often feel guilty at how I must look in the early hours of the night, recently awakened, seeing a new patient. Sometimes they apologize for waking me up, as if their illness is a mere inconvenience for me. I politely do what I have to do, and get back to resting if at all able. It’s amazing how focused one becomes on sleep. I am reminded of Psalm 121: “he who watches over you will not slumber; indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (3b-4).

One of my favorite stories of Borges is The Secret Miracle (http://fortunaty.net/com/textz/textz/borges_jorge_luis_the_secret_miracle.txt). An author is to be executed, but before he is sentenced to death he prays for one year’s time to complete his literary masterpiece. He is brought before a firing squad, but just before the bullets hits him time stops. His consciousness, however, remains, and he can finish his work in peace, in his mind. At the moment the final verse is complete, the bullets resume their course, and the author is killed.

What an amazing thing, to be in a state of productive, restful, sleep, and to die once it is complete? ML is an 86 year-old female. She had atrial fibrillation, multiple gastric ulcers, ischemic colitis…we repaired her stomach, removed her colon, put her back together as best we could. With our help, she lived for about two days. She looked like she was sleeping. She was just lying there, still, not doing anything. I don’t know what she was thinking. Last night, she died peacefully with her two sons at her side.

Make no mistake, I’m sleepy! And so off to bed.