Death.

TW: death, suicide ideation

Leave It Alone by Hayley Williams plays softly in the background.

Let’s talk about how fucked up death is.

Two things I’ve never experienced yet in my life are, well: life and death.

I haven’t died—but unfortunately my best friend did.

I haven’t created a child and I never will. I also haven’t watched someone give birth in person.

So, to conceptualize death and what comes after is a whole big brain thought.

I feel like I have a pretty healthy relationship with death. I respect it. I know it’s necessary. I also feel like, in my normal day-to-day life and in the way my brain processes trauma and grief, I might already have some kind of built-in safety cache.

Like mosquito netting for hard times.

Maybe I’ll be prepared.

But I won’t be.

One of my favorite authors and YouTubers is Caitlin Doughty, aka Ask a Mortician. She’s eloquent and honest about the realities of death. She has facts.

Growing up, I always considered being a mortician—until I learned it was a 24/7, not-very-well-paying job.

Working in the pet industry, I’ve also come face-to-face with a lot of gruesome animal deaths. It was really hard at first. Sometimes there’s still a hard one.

But you harden.

You cope.

I call it a trauma bond.

I’ve already lost Morgan, and now I panic about my partner spontaneously dying. Both of my parents are Baby Boomers, so they’re on their way out. My ex-husband’s grandma is the same age as my dad, and I have to accept that someday I’ll no longer be able to attend her funeral.

I have so many friends I love dearly. And that’s not to say there aren’t other very important people I love very much who could also die, but these are some of the deaths that would be the most devastating—and, statistically, probably the soonest.

Oh, and all at once.

My ex-husband called it the death orgy.

When I finally experience it, it’ll be hard.

I feel like I grieve daily.

Something hits differently when you think about a person no longer existing.

Whenever I need to lubricate my contacts, I think about my dad’s funeral.

Not being able to call him anymore because he just isn’t there.

That is a concept.

And then there’s me.

Joking about jumping off the roof of my workplace.

A person with a history of self-harm.

Suicidal ideation.

Sometimes I wonder if I’ll go first.

I wonder if I’ll get sick, or die in a freak accident. I wonder if my life is a lesson for somebody else, and maybe I don’t need to learn about death from the non-receiving end.

It feels so foreign, yet so comfortable to me.

Sometimes I wonder how many times I’ve died before.

I wonder if other people experience the same heavy-but-empty feeling in their chest.

I think I’m so comfortable with death because when I was three or four, I accepted death into my heart.

I was suffering through a traumatic experience and realized that I was possibly going to die.

Alone.

Death became a familiar thing.

A comfortable blanket.

It was always present, but it never took me.

No matter how bad things got, it just kept giving me another chance.

That’s why one of my favorite phrases is Memento Mori.

Remember that you will die.

But remember to live life in the negative space that exists before then.

When you live with severe, chronic depression, death can become a strange kind of silent comfort. Not necessarily because you want to die, but because there’s a quiet knowledge that someday the suffering will end.

I don’t condone suicide.

But I also hate the simplistic idea that “you’re only passing your pain onto someone else.”

People who are suffering deserve more than guilt.

They deserve help.

They deserve treatment.

They deserve a mental health system that takes their suffering seriously before they reach the point where death feels like their only way out.

I love Hayley Williams’ song Leave It Alone.

She says:
“Now that I finally wanna live
The ones I love are dyin’
Becoming friends with a noose that I made
And I keep tryin’ to untie it”

That fucking hurts.

Because I wonder how I’ll grieve.

All death is different.

I think about the eulogy for my father.

I think about how awkward my mother’s death will be.

I wonder if she’ll go first.

I wonder what burdens I’ll be left with.

What blessings.

I wonder if I’ll be alone, or just feel that way.

I wonder how unfair it’ll feel depending on who goes first.

I wonder how other people will be affected by it.

I don’t want to deal with my mother’s death because there was a point in time when I promised I wouldn’t go to her funeral.

I can’t conceptualize how I’ll handle it.

Denial.

Anger.

Bargaining.

Depression.

Acceptance.

We never forget about the people we love who die.

Or do we?

Will I drop to my knees when I get the call, or will I be there in person?

Where will I be?

What will I be doing?

What will my immediate reaction be?

How will my loved ones support me?

What if I’m not supported?

I wound up being there for Morgan in the ICU after getting the call, and I’ve never been the same.

Then I experienced the secondary deaths of both of my senior cats.

My ex-husband jokes that I’ll have an entire bookcase of pet ashes by the time we’re old.

It’s just weird to think about something that was alive not being alive.

And maybe that’s the part I can never quite make peace with.

The transition.

The moment where something is—

and then it isn’t.

I believe in reincarnation.

I believe we’re all here to learn something.

I believe in fate and free will.

I believe no problem is unique to any of us.

I believe nothing actually matters and that it’s all just a series of constructs and perceptions.

I believe death has as much purpose as life.

I accept it.

I’m not sure if I believe in heaven and hell, but I’m not sure I believe in nothingness, either.

I believe in being a good person.

I want to hope there’s life after death.

And I want there to be just as much reason to live as there is to die.

I want there to be a purpose.

Maybe that’s what I’m really looking for when I think about death.

Purpose.

I hope I get to do most, if not all, of what I want to do before I die.

Living during a basic apocalypse is pretty weird.

Not knowing what the condition of the planet will be in five years is a strange consideration to take into account when thinking about reproduction.

It’s weird to consider reproduction as selfish or not selfish.

It’s hard to say what the next five years will look like for life.

Or for death.

I’m not taking any bets.

But I am, apparently, going to keep living.

So I might as well see what happens.