Scared to Death

When I was little, I was so scared of dying.

Anything having to do with dying. Me dying. Mostly me dying. But also just dying, in general. Death.

It scared the hell out of me. 

I was like five or six when I would lie in bed at night, after my dad had read us a chapter of "The Hobbit" or my mom had sung us a lullaby about Hiroshima. 

I would lie there, sheets and blankets pulled up to my chin, and my little brain would try to imagine what it would be like to die.

How does it feel to stop breathing?

To be in a coffin under piles and piles of dirt?

To not wake up?

To not smell flowers?

To not eat cereal?

To not be able to think or talk or sing ever again ever ever ever?

Just blankness. Just nothingness. Just death.

A wave of panic would rush through my body like a cold MRI dye injection, beginning at my toes and ending at my forehead. I would become flush and my whole body would shudder, like it was trying to shake off fear. Like if I didn't stop thinking about death I would die so I needed to snap out of it. Stop it stop it stop it.

I was raised in a religious home but the idea of the afterlife was never clarified. There were never solid answers, only vague references to comfort and God and souls. No algorithms with equal signs at the end. Just a question mark written on a blackboard.

There were so many questions.

They kept me awake.

When I panicked I would get out of bed and run down the carpeted stairs in my pajamas to my mother, who was sitting in the living room with one light on, quietly watching a movie or reading, and I would tell her I was scared to death of dying.

What do you tell a child who is scared to death of dying?

I don't remember what she told me. It was no comfort. It was not an answer. It was a pat on the head. A get back to bed. A don't worry so much. Maybe a vague reference to comfort and God and souls.

And of course there were no answers. Of course.

It is hard to live with a fear that has no answers.

So I have always been afraid of dying.

Openly and directly afraid.



I was 16 when my mother got very sick and death became real.

Not an abstract thought that kept me up at night.

Real.

They told her she had five years to live, given that it had already spread to her lymph nodes.

Not good. Probably death. Probably soon.

Something that could be delayed with surgery and medicine and poison. But only delayed.

My mother fought death for 18 years.

18 years. She was dying for 18 fucking years.

She knew she was dying for 18 fucking years.

And in my head and heart, I was preparing to mourn my mother for 18 fucking years.

I was scared to death of death. Of her dying.

My mother did not want to die.

She was afraid of dying, too.

She fought it with surgery and medicine and poison and more surgery and more medicine and more poison.



In the year before my mother died, I got married.

She was very sick. She was dying.

Not abstract. Real.

She flew from California to New York to be at my wedding.

She dressed in a blue bohemian tunic and harem pants, embellished with gold. Those were my wedding colors.

She wore a red wig.

She was there.

It may be the most loving thing my mother ever did for me.

Six months later I made a mad dash out to California to see her.

I wanted to show her my new baby girl, who was just 8 weeks old, a tiny fragile baby. I wanted my mother to see my first child before she died, and the 18 years had turned into any day, any day, any day.

She was sick in her liver and spine and brain and lungs.

She wanted to see my baby.

She held my baby once.

It may be the most loving thing I ever did for my mother.

Her arms were weak.

She was dying.

She was scared of dying. She did not want to die. But she was dying.

I tried to comfort my mother. I don't remember what I said. It was no comfort. It was no answer. It was a close hug. It was forgiveness. It was here is my baby. It was don't worry, don't worry. I understand. You tried. You are forgiven. Then a try to sleep. Maybe a vague reference to comfort and God and souls.

What do you tell a mother who is scared to death of dying?

Of course there were no answers. Of course.