{"id":6811,"date":"2025-10-10T04:45:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:45:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/?p=6811"},"modified":"2025-10-10T04:45:47","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T04:45:47","slug":"til-death-do-us-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sometimesraw.com\/?p=6811","title":{"rendered":".Til Death Do Us Part."},"content":{"rendered":"
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A couple of days ago, I watched Ghost with Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze, <\/em>one of my all-time favorite movies. (Crying every.single.time) So, what happens when we die, Mom,\u201d my son asked after the movie. \u201cIs there such thing as heaven and hell?\u201d Well, is there? It is at least a nice thought to think to be up there \u201cin heaven\u201d and meet all your family and friends again, right? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With fall approaching fast, and everything turns dark and grey, questions of death and dying are naturally creeping up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After my son went to bed, I let my thoughts wander; and out of the blue, I remembered something a friends had once said: \u201cI\u2019m not scared of death because after death you can\u2019t feel anything. You just aren\u2019t\u00a0there<\/em>.\u201d But that, to me, is the scary part. Where\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0you? Just nowhere? Just nothing? It\u2019s over? Suddenly I felt like I was standing over a precipice. On a regular fall day, for no reason in particular, my mind had wrapped itself around death for the first time, and I momentarily felt weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have you felt this way? I\u2019ve recently realized,\u00a0death will also happen to me<\/em>. Maybe not today, maybe not next month, but it WILL happen. Before, I knew it would \u201chappen to me,\u201d like knew I would \u201cdie someday,\u201d but not REALLY. Not\u00a0actually<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my thirties, there were so many things \u201cin front\u201d of death. Having my son, moving to Canada, to New York, to Vienna\u2026.Subconsciously, I figured, those things had to happen before I died. I wasn\u2019t next up. I didn\u2019t have to worry about it right now. It was so far away, surely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Nina Riggs\u2019s memoir\u00a0The Bright Hour<\/a>, about her struggle with cancer, published posthumously, began to puncture my cool-headedness. I immediately related to her: her inner monologue felt so similar to mine; she was a writer and a worrier, too. It felt like I was reading a book about myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fear of flying often kicks in around age 27, studies reveal, when people start to grapple with their own mortality. They don\u2019t feel invincible, like they did as rowdy kids and hormonal teenagers. I totally get that, don\u2019t you? \u201cAs life experiences build up, the reality of \u200bour own vulnerability as human beings can set in,\u201d\u00a0says New York-based therapist Nathan Feiles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And what about your later years?\u00a0They say<\/a>\u00a0you should listen to life advice from people in their 80s and 90s, because they\u2019ve been staring death in the face for years. One thing my grandfather used to say that has always stuck with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I was in school, 14 and miserable, I was visiting my grandparents. Over coffee and cake, I mused, \u201cI just have to get through the last three months of the schoolyear; I wish I could just wake up and it would be over.\u201d Opa jerked back, as if I had hit him. \u201cNever wish away your life<\/em>,\u201d he told me, quietly. I struggled to see what he meant \u2014 of COURSE anyone would want to skip days that were difficult or painful or heartbreaking. But, now that I\u2019m older, I\u2019m starting to grasp his point. Soak it\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0up, even the hard parts.\u00a0You are alive<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, how can we move forward without freaking out about death? A friend recommended\u00a0Staring at the Sun<\/a>\u00a0by Irvin Yalom about dealing with death anxiety. \u201cIt helps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or what if we reframe things, so that we see\u00a0life<\/em>, instead of death, as the mind-bending part? Writes Barbara Ehrenreich in\u00a0Natural Causes<\/a>: \u201cYou can think of death bitterly or with resignation, as a tragic interruption of your life, and take every possible measure to postpone it. Or, more realistically, you can think of life as an interruption of an eternity of personal nonexistence, and see it as a brief opportunity to observe and interact with the living, ever-surprising world around us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now and again, I\u2019ll be looking at my child and it will cross my mind that we\u2019re all going to die someday \u2014 and then I\u2019ll think of things like earrings, and they seem so ridiculous. WHO CARES??? We are going to die, WHY ARE WE WEARING EARRINGS. But then maybe that\u2019s the point of jewelry? And sports? And songs? And complicated soup recipes? To be distractingly wonderful and fill up the moments and let you just play with your child on the rug?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our close relationships ground us, too, of course. After years of living with stage IV cancer, Kate Bowler wrote in the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>: \u201cA friend knits me socks and another drops off cookies, and still another writes a funny email or takes me to a concert. These seemingly small efforts are anchors that hold me to the present, that keep me from floating away on thoughts of an unknown future. They say to me, like my sister Maria did on one very bad day: \u2018Yes, the world is changed, dear heart, but do not be afraid. You are loved, you are loved. You will not disappear. I am here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because at the end of the day:\u00a0\u201cWe are all just walking each other home.\u201d \u2014\u00a0Ram Dass<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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