Not that most of us get to choose, but I do have preferences about when, where and how I'd like to die. If get my druthers, I'll be old enough to see my great grandbabies, but not so old that somebody else is wiping my butt. I have a terrible aversion to tiredness, and I imagine that's how it feels to be truly ancient and withered. Just tired all to crazy. On the occasions when I've been in nursing homes, I've been obsessed with how tired you'd have to feel to stay in bed in that place instead of saying "This sucks, I'm outta here, see you when the bars close."
That said, I love my family very much, and am terribly greedy to see as much of their lives as I can manage. Peanut can't crawl yet, and I'm trying to figure out how to convince her to live near me when she has babies of her own. I need to be near my grandbabies. Say she's 30ish when she starts, that makes me 60ish. No sweat. And if I want to make it to great-grandbabyness, I suppose we'll have to rely on Boy, so if he and his kids both make babies at 30, that'll make me 80ish. Do-able. 80 is the new 60.
As to Where, I have more preferences about where I don't want to die than about where I do. Don't want to die underwater. Or in space. Or anywhere cold. Or dark. That leaves what, Arizona?
As to how, I have definate preferences on that subject. I don't want to die of any exposure to inertia. This eliminates car crashes, bullets, things falling form airplanes, me falling from airplanes and the like. I don't want to die from anything slow, wasting and painful. Who would? No surprises really. I think a stroke in my sleep would be the thing. The question is, where do you go to put in your order?
Because people die everyday all the time from completely random weirdnesses. Stingrays stabbing you in the chest, E. coli in your spinach, slipping on your walkway... religions are founded because it is simply crippling to try and wrap your brain around the fact that everything that is important to you can get snuffed in a snap. It has become more difficult since Peanut, but I truly do try to just Let It Go. This is the stuff from which neurosis are made. Life is huge and lovely- you want all of it, to stuff it in our mouth till its juice runs down your chin- and you have no control over when it ends. You have to accept that it could happen, and walk out the door anyway. Eat the spinach. Take a walk.
I'm passing on swimming with stingrays.
Gotta go get while the getting's good- Peanut is asleep and I'm
ephelba
2 comments:
I love your last two paragraphs. Especially the "religions are founded..." observation.
You know, if you're within 5 miles of a nuclear detonation, you're incinerated before your nerve cells can register pain.
That is the way to go.
How come things are more difficult now that Peanut is here? What is the difference between her and Boy and just Boy?
Good question,
Boy was born in good health, I was in good health, life was easy. Hate to say it, but I took these things for granted. After all the scares Peanut gave us I have a new appreciation for the life and health of all my peeps. It's almost as if I didn't believe any of us could die until she got closer to it than I was comfortable with.
I make it sound like we were on death's door. We weren't. More like the front lawn. Close enough.
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