forgive me. i’ve been preoccupied with the possibility of death, not my own.

when i was a child, i understood that people died. everyday, all the time. people very close to me. (i think i knew a lot of older people, but still . . . ) they were people i loved, deeply. that died. went someplace supposedly joyous called heaven. i didn’t question their ascension. experienced only the barest amount of sadness when people close to me died. i remember thinking that grief was selfish (though i have no recollection of judging people who experienced grief; rather, i was bewildered by their intense sadness). shouldn’t we be happy for those who have died? it was something of a sublime facing towards the world. i would be sent in to comfort those who had been closest to the most beloved ones lost. aunts would squeeze my tiny hands at funerals—i was so small and so quiet—i think they feared that i must be freaked out. i felt uncomfortable receiving their unnecessary attempts at comfort. and all their grief. i was fine. really i was.

i didn’t then understand the collapse of faith, what would happen a decade later when i started actually listening to the words in church and rejected its sexist, homophobic doctrine with every molecule of my spirit. and tossed heaven out with it. no longer catholic, and, later, no longer christian, no longer carrying a belief system that encouraged people to live for the afterlife and to deny joy in the moment, to eschew as evil the life of the flesh or of pleasure or delight, i no longer bought into the dream of heaven. i no longer cared whether grief was selfish. i missed those i loved when they died. i held the holes in my heart that their living breathing laughing presences occupied. i covered these holes with my insufficient hands, with my half-empty body, trying to stop their light from leaving me.

there are a few people in particular i am thinking of right now. all the time. i love them so much. and people are so human, so mortal, such very breakable things. and their parts aren’t returnable or easily exchangeable if they arrive damaged or if the system entire grows toxic. i don’t have enough magic to keep everyone safe. and i don’t want to lose anyone beloved to me. not right now. not again. not so young. not so soon after june and sifu coleen and after jen o’ hare. i’ve grown selfish in my old age and i don’t care.

i told my mother that i was worried about the possibility that one of my friends might die (not necessarily this week or this month but conceivably—not definitely, but only possibly—soon), and she sighed heavily, and said, “everyone dies.” no new information, there, i thought. “i know that,” i said, impatient. “i mean soon. sooner than they should.” my mother repeated her statement. “everyone dies.” and you can’t tell when it’s going to happen. or why. she reminded me that there had only been two weeks between the day my grandfather went in to see a doctor, complaining of some sort of discomfort, and the day he died of a cancer he didn’t know he had a month prior. he was in his early sixties. “that was so hard for me,” she exhaled, “and i’m sure it was equally hard on your grandmother.” my mother, the eldest offspring, had been the one to stay behind with grandmama, to take care of him during those two weeks when the rest of us traveled from new jersey and pennsylvania to georgia to see the first of his grandchildren, my older cousin tisha, graduate from college. he died while we were away, practically in my mother’s arms.

i understood what my mother meant. how can you prepare, really? who knows who will die and when? the ones you most fear for may outlast you and the ones you take for granted might be snatched away in a second by a reckless car, an accident, a sudden illness which annihilates. i remember the shock of jen o’hare’s death. how the car escaped her control. nineteen years old and that was it. one terrible crash, one crunch of glass and steel and not immortal anymore. no terminal illness, as in the case of june and of sifu coleen. nothing you could prepare for. or worry or fret about. people die every day . . . and still my fear and my fret don’t go away . . .

i told my mother my reasons for fearing that this one friend in particular might die. though not a foregone conclusion, the reasons were substantial enough to be a valid cause for fear. my mother asked the age of the friend in question. the number i gave was too low. too low to make sense. my mother winced. numbers that low should never be paired with death.

this morbid preoccupation feels ridiculous, embarrassing—inappropriate, even—given that all of the folks i’m remotely concerned about seem much more concerned, themselves, with living than with dying. i don’t want to stress out the people i’m afraid of losing, because i’m sure they probably get more of that than they need (and than would be health-inducing), and really it’s a waste of their valuable time and energy, don’t you think, what with all this living there is to do. i also don’t want to manifest my fears, make them more real, give them substance by believing in them. human beings can do that, you know.

so here goes:

i believe that those beloved to me are living passionately, and will continue to live (and in fine style) for as long as it is appropriate for them to do so, that every moment i share with anyone i care about is a moment to be absolutely cherished, and that all of this fuss i am making, all of this fear i am experiencing, must somehow be channeled into being as present, as vibrantly and passionately and ecstatically alive as possible.

let’s take hands and livingly manifest that!