Die die die

I think about death a lot.

Before I leave the house for work, my first thought is that I could die on the way there or on the way home. "Car accidents happen pretty often. This could be the last time you see me," I've remarked to Gideon on several occasions, which no doubt soothes his own anxiety.

I often see reports of people who have died young in tragic accidents, like a young man who was crushed to death during a tornado last year or one of my acquaintances who was fatally shot a few months ago, and immediately ponder how I'll meet my end. Will it be a car accident? Cancer? ALS? A violent accident? The possibilities are endless.

Sunday night, I couldn't stop thinking about this. I sat there in bed, paralyzed, listening to Gideon snore next to me and wondering if I'll ever live to get married or have children or get a book published or pay my mom back all that money she spent on me since I was born. I remembered reading a magazine article earlier in the day that said heart disease is the number one killer of women, so I started thinking about how painful it would be to die from that. (I paid absolutely no attention in my college's remedial biology class, so no one should expect me to grasp the pain meter of any disease.)

I thought about my mom's dad - whose deathiversary (a terrible term I don't want to be responsible for coining) will be later this month - and the way he suffered slowly from cancer until he died. Would that happen to me? Cancer does run in my family, so it wouldn't be entirely shocking for me to get some form of it. It also runs in Gideon's family, which scares me far more than my own doomed lineage.

What about my mom and my nana? How will they die, and how will I ever adjust to life without them? I remembered how my mom handled her dad's death and how I thought she was so strong. In all honesty, I can't recall her crying much. I can't remember crying, either, but I'm sure I did it.

So she cried. She must have. If/when I lose her, I'm afraid I might not emerge from bed for a few days. I'll spend hours feeling guilty over treating her poorly when I was younger and not appreciating all she did and has done for me. At least, that's what I think I'll do. But I thought I'd be distraught over my papaw's death and instead spent a couple years denying it bothered me and exhibiting extreme anxiety. So maybe I'll be fine, in the absolute worst possible way, after all.

Thinking about all this stuns me. Since my papaw died in 2004, I've lived in constant fear of someone else close to me dying. I talked about it once with my mother a few months after he died and have mentioned it to Gideon a few times, but otherwise I've kept all this anxiety to myself in the hope that it'll just go away if I ignore it. Because that's definitely what psychiatrists suggest to overcome phobias.

I know this is morbid and I hope it hasn't inspired a whole new brand of anxiety for you. I'm just wondering if anyone else thinks about this - not even as much as I do, but just at all.

I'm sure some of you immediately thought about the afterlife - whatever version of the afterlife you believe in - when you read that sentence. Good for you. I mean that in the most sincere way; as a person who has always found it difficult to believe in what I can't see, I applaud those who exercise blind faith. I wish I could do it. Maybe someday I'll be able to.

In the meantime, I'll lie awake at night wondering how and when death will take me. Will it be a tragic roller coaster accident? A kitten attack? One of those insidious diseases you don't know about until your skin is falling off?

Time will tell.