Automatic Pilot — The Day I Almost Killed My Whole Family
A Cautionary Tale (because Carbon Monoxide Can Kill People)
Once upon a time last year, I almost snuffed out my family — husband, two teenagers, and Panda, resident Chihuahua.
I say ‘almost snuffed out’ because thankfully, they are all still alive and relatively happy to be alive, even though happiness is a moving target, especially for teenagers, middle-aged people, and sometimes even dogs.
As far as I know, they don’t resent me for almost killing them. I’m sure they resent me for other reasons, but I can safely say with 99.8% certainty that this particular offense has been forgiven. Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s a dead issue, so to speak. I mean, it never comes up in conversation, though they may just want to avoid watching me cry until makeup runs down my face. I’m not sure and dare not ask.
I was sick to my stomach that day, the whole day and for several days thereafter. Even right this minute, if I cock my head a certain way, I can relive the sensation of bile rising up in my throat the moment I realized what I had done, what I’d almost done, and what I’m lucky enough not to have successfully done.
I’ve been meaning to share this story as sort of a public service announcement, but it’s taken me until now to put it in perspective. No one died, but they so easily could have, which would have made the rest of my life a living hell beginning with coming home to the house burned to the ground with my dead family inside.
It’s especially horrible to be a mother with this on my scroll of reasons I’ll never win a Parent of the Year award. I assure you, I cherish my family more than anything else in the world. I’d give my life for them. They’re the reason I get up in the morning. If I’m brutally honest, they’re the reason I didn’t snuff myself out a long time ago for all the times I’ve ever felt like a failure. In this case, I’ve never been so thrilled to have failed at something.
I know it was necessary for me to learn the importance of mindfulness in a dramatic way. I’ll never forget it because it was kind of like being brutally beaten (though only psychically), and zaps my senses like an electric shock every time I think about it. Yet, I live entirely too much in my head and often suffer for it. In fact, just earlier today I left something cooking on the stove and walked away for several moments before I remembered what I was doing.
The reason I decided to share was divine intervention. As the marketing manager of a hospital, one of my duties is to compose a newsletter for employees to keep them engaged and informed about the goings-on of the organization. When one of the contributors, who happens to be the hospital’s Safety Officer, sent me a column about avoiding death by carbon monoxide, I decided it was time to share my story.
Now that I’m finally finished stalling, here’s what happened.
I remember the day well. Too well. It’s still so fresh that I’m shaking as I type. I had just gotten to work when I unlocked the door to my office and did my usual settling in. The sun streamed through the windows like the broad smile of an old friend. I felt sluggish, but willing, as I shrugged off my commute and mentally untethered from whatever audiobook I happened to be listening to on the way in. I was just about to say hello to my boss in the next office, when my husband called, which he rarely does. Partly, because he’s so submerged in retirement that it’s hard for him to remember that working for a living is still a thing.
“Hey! Everything OK?” I asked.
His voice was steady, dark, accusatory. “What did you do this morning?” he asked.
I had no idea why he’d ask me that, and stammered accordingly.
“The gas on the stove was on,” he finally said. “Did you mean to turn it on?”
“No!” I don’t eat before I leave for work, and certainly don’t cook in my groggy state.
“The gas was on when you left,” he repeated more slowly this time.
Guilt and anxiety buzzed like an angry bee trapped between my ears. I remembered haphazardly tossing food into my lunch bag, but I didn’t know what to say.
“Retrace your steps,” he pressed.
“I wrestled a bunch of green bananas trying to get the ripest one,” I said, then gasped. Suddenly, a clear picture came to me. “The bananas were right next to the stove. I must have leaned on the knob and turned it on without realizing it.”
“You could have killed us all,” he said.
I couldn’t choke back tears because I knew what he must be thinking. “I’ll talk to you later,” he said, then hung up.
He was thinking that I turned the gas on, leaving everyone to die. I’m sorry to say that we have a past that supported such a horrible assumption. Several years ago, I had an affair that I thought was going to be the next chapter of my life. And so, we divorced. When I came to my senses about a year and a half later, we remarried. Can you see how he might have thought I’d acted not out of mindlessness, but malice?
By hanging up, he left me to a deep, dark lonely place. There was no way to suppress the kind of ugly cry that began spilling out, the kind that deepens and escalates as one shameful realization after another presents itself. The worst thought was inspired by imagining him telling the kids. I didn’t want them to spend the day thinking that their mother is a half-assed murderer, or any kind of murderer.
I spent some time googling mindfulness and how to master it. Anxiety, it turns out, is a major enemy of mindfulness, which requires remaining calm and living in the moment. I’m often anxious before I go to the hospital in the morning, not knowing what the day will bring.
New Jersey-based behavioral health expert, Dr. Essie Larson, says, “For many of us, mindfulness is particularly hard when things in life are rough and there is very little pleasure. We spend our time running from one distraction to another trying desperately to avoid the pain of the current reality. However, while this distraction may help us keep distance from the suffering, it also keeps us from being mindful of whatever brief moments of joy might exist.”
It also creates the risk of doing really stupid freakin’ things like turning on the gas by accident, almost killing my entire sleeping family. I could not get this thought out of my mind. I barely made it to the end of the day, and the drive home was doubly torturous. I couldn’t listen to anything but my tainted thoughts. I studied the religious billboards about how Jesus loves me and even sinners can make it into heaven if they pray.
So, I prayed that I’d never be that careless ever again. Of course, I never set out to be careless in the first place, but it was morning. Morning and I have never really been friends. I was really tired and therefore anxious about getting on the road. I was preoccupied thinking about all the things I wanted to accomplish that day. I was trying to pack my lunch with one foot out the door, rather than paying attention to what I was doing. It was a recipe for setting a crime scene, if only accidentally.
A few minutes from home, I was still so caught up in a free-fall of remorse that I’d forgotten who my children are, and didn’t expect their reaction. They don’t miss a chance to be funny.
“That would have been tight,” my son said.
“That’s actually not a bad way to die,” my daughter said.
My husband was over it by the time I got home, too.
Still, guilt follows me around, and serves as a reminder to be mindful. There’s also the return of a mild case of OCD I thought I’d cured myself of years ago.
Eyeballing the burner knobs before I walk out the door isn’t enough. I have to physically turn all four of them to be sure they are pinned in the off position, even if I have not been anywhere near the stove. It was a painful wake-up call that I need to practice mindfulness, especially in the morning when I’m not entirely lucid.
Of course, coronavirus has done a whole lot to put things into perspective. So, thanks, ‘rona! Living in the moment became increasingly more important now contracting a potentially deadly disease has climbed higher on the list of probabilities.
Here are some tips for achieving mindfulness (in spite of the pandemic) from Dr. Larson, someone I trust because I work with her and have seen her in action.
- Lower your expectations about how mindfulness “should” be practiced. Meditation is the number one thing that scattered minds need in order to calm down. But good luck with that when you’re mentally all over the place. Sitting silently for an hour or even five minutes can seem completely overwhelming. Instead, open your mind to the possibility that mindfulness practice can take place anywhere and for any amount of time (even seconds). It’s about being fully aware in a particular moment no matter how long that moment is.
- Pay more attention to the times you smile or laugh during the day. Sometimes it’s feeling the temperature of the water on your hands when you’re washing them for the hundredth time. Or the smell of the shampoo when you finally get a minute to take a shower. The taste of your favorite coffee or tea hitting your tongue. These fleeting moments of joy can be experienced even in these harsh times, and believe it or not, they help increase our emotional resilience. Mindfulness is being aware enough to catch them and savor them when they occur.
- Take a moment right now. Think of something funny you saw or heard. Smile on purpose, or laugh. Notice how your face feels as the corners of your mouth upturn. Take a breath and remind yourself that this is how we can begin to live mindfully.
If all that doesn’t work, I may just have to get another tattoo that says, “Thou shalt not function on auto-pilot!”
