Deathbed

The title for this entry is the title by the same name of Relient K's Deathbed Song off the Five Score and Seven Years album. Below are the lyrics to the song and video of the song. I would recomend giving it a read while listening to the song.



I can smell the death on the sheets
Covering me
I can't believe this is the end

But this is my deathbed
I lie here alone
If I close my eyes tonight
I know I'll be home

The year was nineteen forty one
I was eight years old and
Far far too young
To know that the stories
Of battles and glory
Was a tale a kind mother
Made up for her son
You see
Dad was a traveling preacher
Teaching the words of the Teacher
But mother had sworn
Went off to the war
And died there with honor
Somewhere on a beach there
But he left once to never return
Which taught me that I should unlearn
Whatever I thought a father should be
I abandoned that thought
Like he abandoned me

By forty seven I was fourteen
I'd acquired a taste for liquor and nicotine
I smoked until I threw up
Yet I still lit 'em up for thirty more years
Like a machine

So right there you have it
That one filthy habit
Is what got me where I am today

I can smell the death on the sheets
Covering me
I can't believe this is the end
I can hear those sad memories
Still haunting me
So many things
I'd do again

But this is my deathbed
I lie here alone
If I close my eyes tonight
I know I'll be home

I got married on my twenty first
Eight months before my wife would give birth
It's easier to be sure you love someone
When her father inquires with the barrel of a gun
The union was far from harmonious
No two people could have been more alone than us
The years would go by and she'd love someone else
And I realized I hadn't been loved yet myself

From there it's your typical spiel
Yeah if life was a highway
I was drunk at the wheel
I was helping the loose ends
All fall apart
Yeah I swear I was destined to fail
And fail from the start

I bowled about six times a week

The bottle of Beam kept the memories from me
Our marriage had taken a seven-ten split
Along with my pride the ex-wife took the kids

I can smell the death on the sheets
Covering me
I can't believe this is the end
I can hear those sad memories
Still haunting me
So many things
I'd do again

But this is my deathbed
I lie here alone
If I close my eyes tonight
I know I'll be home

I was so scared of Jesus
But He sought me out
Like the cancer in my lungs
That's killing me now
And I've given up hope
On the days I have left
But I cling to the hope
Of my life in the next
Then Jesus showed up
Said "Before we go"
"I thought that we might reminisce"
"See one night in your life"
"When you turned out the light"
"You asked for and prayed for my forgiveness"

You cried wolf
The tears they soaked your fur
The blood dripped from your fangs
You said, "What have I done?"
You loved that lamb
With every sinful bone
And there you wept alone
Your heart was so contrite

You said, "Jesus, please forgive me of my crimes
Sanctify this withered heart of mine
Stay with me until my life is through
And on that day please take me home with you"

I can smell the death on the sheets
Covering me
I can't believe this is the end
I can hear You whisper to me,
"It's time to leave
You'll never be lonely again"

But this was my deathbed
I died there alone
When I closed my eyes tonight
You carried me home

I am the Way
Follow Me
And take My hand
And I am the Truth
Embrace Me and you'll understand
And I am the Light
And for Me you'll live again
For I am Love
I am Love
I, I am Love

While tears roll down my face I start to dwell on the lyrics and hypnotic tones that just possessed my mind and body. To fathom if this story is real or not is not relevant. Trying to process the strong emotions I try to reel in the the many thoughts blazing through my head. This man is me. I am him. No I haven't smoked or got my future ex-wife pregnant. He is me in the sense that I am a sinner. Nothing separates us. No sin he did or I do is greater. All have sinned and fallen short. I have fallen short. The retelling starts to break apart all previous thoughts and activities. More then 10 minuets of song have entranced me with the blight that has befallen this man. He tells you and I of his life. But listening I don't picture him. I see me. I see my sins. I see my regrets. In short I see my life, not flashing as heard in stupid TV shows, but slow and in clarity. What have I to show on my deathbed? Have I made the right choices to lead me down a better path then the one the hallow man spoke of. Oh Lord, have I cried wolf to you? We get so caught in life we forget about how important or how much it means. We only get one life and a lot of us don't live it. We just float on as that of drift wood through a wake less river. This song seems to flow through my blood stream and stops 4 inches above my wrists. Is it poor blood circulation? Maybe. Who cares! The strong feel seems to get heavy. I feel the need to drop to my knees and surrender to my creator. Like a parent watching over their child I wonder have I made you proud? Trying to see your eyes I speak with silent words to your ear. Am I all I could be? Dwelling on this somber song I wonder about the people I know. What have I meant to them? While the casket lay open with my pale face looking up, who will see me? What will they say? To those who I've held anger at after the sun had fallen, was it worth it? It is the end of my days, was any of it worth it? Who would approach and say "I've loved you all my life". Why? Why do we take for granted so many things?

I am living in a free country. But people don't know at what cost. Oh, they say they do. But they don't. They weren't there. They didn't feel the sand pop up from the ground in to their eyes as they ran up Normandy. They didn't pull the trigger on a gun ending someones life at the cost of sanity and night terrors only to live free. The same can be said for Jesus. We don't have a clue what it means that he died for us. NOT ONE! We weren't there. We didn't feel the hate rising from the crowd as they shrieked his name in condemnation. We didn't see the sides of the world go black as the glass and rock impacted our back. We didn't carry the tool of our death and stare in to the clouds asking why the creator had forsaken us. We take it for granted. We slash our loved ones with hate and thoughtlessness. We take what we want because we think we should have it. We tell ourselves it's OK to do this sin because I won't do it again, I'll ask for forgiveness. We don't deserve our freedom, we don't deserve our lives.

Everything changes once someone dies. You find nothing matters. As Linkin Park said "In End, It doesn't even matter". It doesn't. The fighting, the hate, and the way a person lived. It doesn't mean anything in the end. The only think that matters is how you lived for God. Did you live life? Did you love others like you wished to be loved?

How many times have you played the love game only to find you couldn't say how you feel? You start to hear people step up and say they loved this person. But it's too late. They're gone. Why didn't you tell them or show them before they died? What are we so afraid of? Getting love in return? Oh, maybe in a year or couple days I will say my feelings to this person. You may not have that. I don't know any who know the time of their demise.

What is your purpose? What makes life worth living to you? Most of the world gets up and does the 9 to 5. They do this to make money. Money to pay for things. Why? Because they want things. Why? Because there is a need for it. Why do they need it? Because in the end they have a God shaped hole that they try and fill with work, with material things, with things they have to do but don't need to. In the early days of man they didn't have what we have today. THEY JUST LIVED. There wasn't a need to get boat, or have to be the best artist. They just lived. They made sure that they and their family was taken care of and then just lived.

We need to live. Like tomorrow is the last day. Like the last person you said goodbye to was the last one till judgment day. Why aren't we living? Why are we floating on in life?

Are you going to cry wolf?

I have cried over this song
and to my creator as well.