Quick Response to Raymond Carver's Cathedral

This is a quick response to Raymond Carver's short story Cathedral that I wrote today for my American Lit class. 

I remember reading this story before, no idea which class it was, and as I started rereading it, I was thrilled to have forgotten the ending! So it was a new discovery, a fresh experience through more seasoned eyes. So many thoughts came to mind: First, being high, or experiencing euphoria. I went into pre-term labor with one of my babies and they gave me an incredibly potent, fast-acting shot of fentanyl. It worked within less than a second, and I rose, levitated, above the hospital bed, while the baby inside me tried to force her way out. It was one of the most amazing experiences, being outside of myself, outside of my life. 

Second, I think of the first time I jumped out of an airplane. The first 45 seconds were free-fall and I felt nothing but wind and speed, unable to consciously grasp any other sensations. Then the chute came up and I glimpsed the heaven that I don't believe in. The world was silent, the clouds danced around my tandem partner and I, but they couldn't come in, couldn't broach the safety, the intimacy, the sanctuary, that existed under that parachute. 

Finally, I think of my late father, watching him take his last strangled breath in a cold, sterile hospital room, surrounded by family, none of which could save him or carry even a piece of his burden. I tried to breath for him, like physically, literally. I didn't mean to, it was an involuntary reaction. I sucked in extra air, exhaled slowly, dramatically. He suffocated anyway. And in that moment, I did not exist. Not in my own body, anyway. Not in my own life. 

I've never been forced to sit down and contemplate these ideas and experiences before now, but in some way, Cathedral has brought me to this place. It didn't happen last time I read it, but then, of course, my dad was still alive and my sweet Mariah had yet to be conceived. Life is a series of moments, experiences, illusions, and the destruction or elevation of those illusions. And around every corner, if we open ourselves to it, we might find that there is an awakening, sitting there, waiting to open our eyes by forcing them shut.