Waiting to die

I feel like I was born contemplating death.

My earliest memories are of quizzing my mother about heaven and being afraid I might die before she did. She assured me her father, my grandfather, would love me very much and take good care of me while I waited for her and Daddy to come. Of course looking back I realize she was deep in mourning for her father who died soon after I was born. I would lie awake after saying the child's prayer, now I lay me down to sleep, trying to imagine this place filled with clouds and light and long lines of souls waiting for their loved ones.

I was so homesick the first year of college that I took a whole bottle of aspirin, hoping it would end my misery. Of course it didn't and in the end I was glad.

The first year I was married we lived far far away from both of our families. My husband was in the army and I was so young. I remember going to bed several times certain that I would die before I wake. But of course I didn't.

My nearly thirty year marriage deteriorated with every year. The joy of watching my children grow was dimmed by a difficult relationship with their father. I put off going for medical treatment thinking it would be easier to die than  have surgery. I made several half hearted attempts to end it all, thinking the children would be better off if we weren't together. But then, just the opposite of all that was when he announced he was divorcing me the day after our son's 18th birthday. I was so terrified that I took most of a bottle of Xanax and ended up in the hospital for three weeks.

Two years later we actually did get a divorce and as the years have passed, that need to die has disappeared. But not the thought of dying. Dying holds less fear for me than fire, or being at the mercy of some dread disease. I have often thought I would die. When I turned 58, the age of my mother when she died, I fully expected to die.

I didn't.

There have been other times when I was just as certain, but I think the only thing that is truly certain is that no one will be more surprised than me when I actually do die and I am beginning to think I might be one of those people who push a hundred. Now I worry about living. I want it to be as rich and full of quality as I can manage.