Beep. Beep. Beep.
A dark hospital room in a foreign country. I am flat on my back, wires and sensors attached to my chest and coming out of my groin. I feel like I’m coming to the surface after a deep dive. My breath is short and my head thick. It takes seconds of blinking and coughing to remember where I am.
All alone. None of those closest to me know I am here. Not my mum, not my dad, not my five brothers or big sister or my best friends. I haven’t told them what’s happening, because I don’t want to worry them. Halfway round the world, they think I’m playing cricket.
The cricket is going on without me. I am in Melbourne, in a ward on Bridge Road, just a lofted six from the giant pylons of the MCG. The rest of the West Indies squad have flown west to Adelaide. I am all alone.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
It started in when I was 16. Feeling a little bit out of breath when I hadn’t done anything to get out of breath about. You feel difficult. It’s like breathing but not breathing. You try to catch the air but it won’t come. You lift up your shirt and with a lurch you can see it, your heart ticking and jumping under the skin.
I ignore it and carry on. A sudden movement, and it knocks on the door again. Breathing but not breathing. The skin ticking and jumping.
There is something wrong with a valve. It scares me thinking about it, so I keep playing cricket as if all is smooth and easy. Playing Test matches, feeling like a king, the World Boss, the Six Machine, only for it to come again and again. I have to stop games, signal to the umpire. Down on my haunches, calling for water. Trying not to show any weakness to the opposition, to the leery bowlers, but inside scared scared scared.
Always in my mind. I speak to the West Indies Cricket Board about it, about getting money for surgery. They are hesitant. I speak to the players’ association; they step in.
We travel round Australia, and my heart haunts every hot mile. We come to Melbourne and I make the decision. I’ve never before had any sort of surgery, never been put to sleep. My team-mates move on and I stay back, all alone.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
So here I am, lying in the hospital bed, a drip in my arm, the heart monitor showing green lines. Wires and patches. I’m not allowed to lift anything or have something to drink. I’m not allowed to move.
I was happiest when I was young, when I was carefree. You don’t know the danger and you don’t know responsibility. As life catches you up there is more and more to it: worries, pressures, bills upon bills.
As a kid you just carry on living. Go out and have fun, play cricket and football in the street, talk about girls, shoot birds for breakfast. You don’t know how free you are. You don’t think about what’s ahead of you. You don’t worry about what’s down the road, where you’re going to be, what you’re going to become. You just think about playing cricket, because that’s all you want to do.
And now I am cheating death.
We have a saying in Jamaica: Use sleep an’ mark death. Sleep foreshadows death. You get warnings in life, and the wise man heeds them.
In that moment I realize I have changed. Looking down at the wires, the patches, my heart no longer jumping under my skin, I make the vow.
From this day on, I’m going to enjoy life endlessly. Whenever – God’s will – I get better, I’m going to do everything to the fullest. No waiting, no hedging, no compromises, no apologies. Night won’t stop me, dawn won’t stop me. Wherever I go, I’m going to have fun.
I call my family. Things start to happen. Jamaicans in the city bring me soup and home-cooked specials. My strength comes back, and the vow remains.
I fly home. On my first night I go straight to a club. On my second night I go to a club. On my third night I can’t remember my second night.
I picture a green graph like the ones I’ve been watching on the cardiograph, except this time showing parties per week rather than heartbeats. In Melbourne I’m flatlining. In Kingston there’s a spike that won’t calm down.
And I have a new philosophy to go with my newly mended heart. Just breathe. Breathe. Get out in the air and breathe.
Define yourself, what you want to do. Breathe and let the stress and anger go. And you will be guided accordingly. Your mind will take you places.
It comes to me naturally. You can’t live in the darkness. You must come into the light.