Sometime after I had already written the pages you are about to sit through, I realized I had been using the wrong word throughout. Dread is a more accurate version of what I am thinking about, and I have Julian of Norwich, a fifteenth-century anchorite, to thank for pointing this out. In her Revelations of Divine Love, the account of a vision she had during an illness in her thirty-first year, she says, “I believe dread can take four forms.” In a nutshell, the first of these forms is what I will describe as the unconscious emotion fear—your very first response to the smell of smoke, the sound of thunder, the sight of flames, the slap. The second form of dread is the anticipatory dread of pain, either physical, emotional, spiritual, or psychological, and that, folks, covers nine-tenths of the world’s surface. The third form of dread is doubt, or despair. And the fourth form of dread is “born of reverence,” the holy dread with which we face that which we love most, or that which loves us the most.

I was reasonably certain my right eye was developing a cataract.  I delayed going to the optometrist.

My children joke that if my arm is nearly sliced from the shoulder I will apply ointment, take an aspirin, drink plenty of fluids and go to bed early.

When I finally sat in his chair I suggested the possibility of a cataract, to which he responded, "You're a bit young." (I was then in my early fifties.)

After a couple of tests, he asked.  "Been in any bar fights recently?"  No, I replied.  "Take steroids?" No again.  I had a non-age related cataract usually resulting from blunt trauma or steroid abuse.

Hearing the diagnosis I had anticipated, I began to slump in the chair.  I could not keep my eyes open. I could not speak   It was as if the calibration between my brain and body suddenly shut down.  I blacked out.  I fainted. For a few seconds, I was gone.

My only explanation is that some aspect of mind -- despite every conscious choice -- was in deep denial at the prospect of death.  The diagnosis frightened this me out of myself.