I was born with this impending sence of doom linguiring in the back of my mind.
I knew from the moment of cenception... ok thats an over statement.
I remeber being very young and looking at an ant on the pavment, I wanted to share my Ice cream
with it so I took a finger full and dropped it on the ant: the ant drownd.
When I tried and tried to make the ant stand up again I watched in horror realizing that it was no longer
a functionaing breathing thing. It was in fact: dead. If this living breathing functioning creature could be living one
moment and then not the next, well then, sure as sand hill so could I.
That was my first encounter with death.
Realizing your own mortality years ahead of others is sort of a lonely road. In day care at age 3 a girl told me that the
red skins on peanuts were poison and make you dead. Note, my first panic attack. Of couse I believed her and went into
a state of shock that I too would soon be as the ant. I did not sucomb that day to the red skins of the peanut but I learned
instead that this girl obviously had no idea how serious death was and that once the ice cream drops you will never swim out
of it again.
So I grew up with this disposition of fear towards dieing. I slept with my lights on because maybe just maybe I would see
death coming. I watched the sky at night and fled to my mothers bed crying if I saw anything out of ordinary coming towards me
that could in fact be death. I was sure I would see it coming just as the ant had seen the clob of rocky road flayling
towards its small head on that fateful day.
Death never showed up and I wasted half a decade watching for it.
School took my mind off death awhile after an adult told me: kids dont die. Death is only for really old sick people,
that and ants I thought to myself.
Age 7 driving to .... well passengering to somewhere with my mom. I turn to my mom and ask
"mom, where do people come from?.. not babies... but people, like in the begginging?"
She told me she didnt know.
But how was that possible? I thought she knew everything, isnt that how it works as you age you learn and then at
some point you know everything? Wait one second... was SHE the adult that told me kids dont die? Or was it some other
un-knowing adult? I couldnt remember, i had heard it and if adults dont know everything then surely they cannot be sure
kids dont die.
Age 8- A girl at my school younger then me at the time was told she had a terminal brain tumour. Now I was very confused. If
kids dont die and terminal means ... you are going to die then how was this girl terminal? And if this girl could die then why
couldnt I die?
This is when the letters started.
I have boxes and books and more boxes OF books and letters and binders of letters I have written people. I have
always written these letters and kept them out of view but somewhere that incase I died someone would find them and
hand them out at my funeral to those they were addressed to.
I have written letters to family and to friends and people I met only once but for some reason thought they might care if I died.
At night I would go under the covers with my flashlight and write letters to people I cared about telling them I cared about them
because I was affraid to do it in life, but if I died I wanted them to know.
I kept them close to my bed so when my house burnt down (of couse it never would) I would be able to get them out.
I was an emergency prepard kid. If the sky turned dark I would pack up some belongings and food and water for the pets in
suitcases and move it all and the animals and my self into the basement. Annnnd after the rain went away I came back up
never feeling silly for my death pre-cautions.
Life was normal for me other then this facination with death. Which had no begining other than an unfortunate ant on its way home.
age 11 At recess playing with the boys, well playing by myself NEAR the boys, I was bombarded on the way into the school
with balls of ice to the head. One of these balls of ice found its way down my throat, well half way down my throat.
I remeber seeing the typical stars and then nothing. Until I was at the top of the shorter of the two pine trees on the yard looking
down on my best friend pulling at my shoulders and hitting me in the back with her arm. And then? Then I saw snow and tasted
blood. Maybe I imagined the whole thing, who knows? But for what ever reason from that moment on it was known to me
you dont see death coming; death can be there and gone before you sense anything is wrong.
My Oma died when I was 14. That was the first person I had known very well to die. None of my friends had lost a grandparent
I was the first and somehow that didnt make me feel special. One friend had to put her cat to sleep but somehow the
weight of that didnt make me feel any better.
After this the fact that people might actually die BEFORE me sank in and so I thought I had better get back to the letters. It wasnt so much that there was a ton of people I was writing to. Mostly the same people over and over. I wanted to say it right. but when it came time to sending, there was some kind of un-seen wall. I
simply could not do it. I could not send these letters. I sent some, I sent, well one, to the only person I honestly felt maybe
needed it, or maybe I needed them to need it. But I had this feeling that no one else cared to share their feelings and maybe
that was what you are supposed to do, you wait until someone dies and then spend the rest of your life wishing you had
told them how much you loved them. And then at their funeral you all cry together and say
"I wish I had told him how I felt".
bull shit i say.
So on things go. Right? Trucking forward. Had a couple of horrible years where death became sort of romantisized and I
would lay awake at night staring at the ceiling thinking in a half stoned stouper, maybe I will die tonight, who knows? and
if not tonight then perhaps tomorrow. It almost seemed to have changed from a fear to a longing. This did not last long.
And time goes on and life goes on and you see the mistakes you made in the past with an amazing new clarity.
And you start to believe you are getting on the right track again. And then somthing happens that sets you back to the
very begining. The epiphany, the ant on the side walk all over again.
I was 18 and madly in love with someone I know I shouldnt have been. But all I wanted to was to be loved for real and not
for fake. And no matter how many are going to tell you its wrong you cant believe it until you see if blow up in your face for
real. So skirting along the thin edge inbetween sanity and insanity I played. Only for about 5 months. And then he died.
And on the day he died my entire life from day one to present suddenly became a blurr and nothing mattered but that day.
Nothing mattered but the fact that someone I loved, someone I thought would be in my life for the long haul no matter the
odds and someone who was seemingly healthy was now Dead. And the only person I wanted to talk to about my loss was the lost. Frustrating. And at this moment I realized, dead means forever.
It was no longer saved for the elderly, or kids with terminal illness, or people in tragic car accidents, it could happen to someone
I loved and to someone I had made future plans with. Future plans do not save anyone. Death doesnt care what you had
planned for two thursdays from now. And so, i ran away. I no longer feared my own death at all. I now inherited from this
experiance a fear for the death of anyone out of my sight. And this is a hard burden to carry. When the phone rings you
automatically assume: someone is dead. When there is a knock on the door you right away think : its the police: whos dead
now? When you dont hear from someone for a few days you presume they are dead. And it isnt much fun. This was 3 years ago
and in that time 5 people I know have died. Thats only averaged out to 2 a year, doesnt sound bad does it? They vary from
A friends grandmother, a whole family of friends mother, a dear friend from highschool who commited suicide last year and a VERY dear friends tragic loss of her husband and then yesturday my grandfather passed away. And somehow, i will not cry. I want to say death doesnt surprise me anymore, but i dont want to test death, i dont want death to say "oh, ya... well how about
THIS?!" I dont feel like any more tragidy thank you I have had enough for now. But I have noticed I dont even cry my own tears
anymore. I cry for other people now. When my friends mother passed away they were SO strong and took it in stride
because it was expected of them and I was the sobing mess. I dont want other people to hurt because I know how much
loss hurts more then most people I know and I dont know whats worse ... loosing someone myself, or someone I love loosing
someone? All I know if I do cry about my grandfather its for his wife, not for me anymore.
Of course my perception of death is a lot different then it should or would be.I have learned so much . And I do not want to say I am GLAD I have suffered these losses but I am glad if I can make someone elses loss easier on them, and yes, i do get the oppertunity now and again. But all i have learned ....
I do not fear it anymore because I have never seen a sad or painful look on the face of someone who has passed away. and because my grandfathers clock stoped at the exact moment he died and now will not start. And because my brother had an experiance when my other grandfather died which tells me the soul surives and I have witnessed enough miracles to know death is not a dead end but a door way. Death only hurts those left behind. And no matter how badly it hurts it only hurts less as the days go by, AND you CAN survive what ever events life throws at you.
My perception is this:
death doesnt care about you, but you need to care about death. No matter how many people have said it in the past I will
say it again, dont ever take anyone for granted and dont ever NOT tell someone how you feel. I have told people my bare-
naked emotions in the past and I have never regreted it. I dont know any one that doesnt want to be loved, where does
fear have a place in a world where we all want to be loved .... just get out there and love eachother already, because if you dont
... well
guess what?
Try as hard as you will at this life thing, but none of you are going to make it out alive.
