07 Jun 01

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Fear of Death

I've been meaning to write something about Nonie in my journal, but haven't been able to do it. Every time I think about what to write, it means thinking about the fact that she died, which then means thinking about death. My mind, too well trained in thought aversion during my Mormon upbringing, shies away from the subject, gliding like a pat of butter tossed too carelessly on a flat griddle, sliding right off the edge and out of play.

Nonie herself wrote about death, and the first time I read it, I applauded her peace and fearlessness. She wrote it in the autumn of 1999, and that spring I had just had my own face smashed into the prospect of death, when the doctor spoke to me of cervical cancer.

I tried to be matter of fact. I tried to postpone my feelings until I knew for sure what I was dealing with. And it all ended well. The surgeries took, and I've been fine ever since. My current doctor even says that by his definition, it wasn't cancer at all.

But now I have a fear of death. Now, airplane rides aren't so fun anymore. Now, driving is more nerve wracking. Now, I am not so confident in my abilities as a badass.

It's not that I was full of youthful delusions of immortality. I knew about dying and used to be comfortable about it. I don't know where that went. The simple thought of ceasing to exist scares the hell out of me. Where did that come from?

When I was a kid, it was eternity that scared the hell out of me. The very image of the eternal peace of heaven, ongoing, the same thing throughout ages and eons without end, forever and ever - it reduced me to tears. It's still scary, the idea of unchanging infinity. Outer space scares me like that. It's too much to grasp with my little simian mind. But over the years a person gets ideas, ideas about reincarnation or about divine missions and assignments, about things going on that impose limits, beginnings and endings, while still keeping the continuing, the persistence, possible.

But now I haven't got faith. All I can see is an abrupt end. A cessation of being. As though all existence is, to you, the individual, a broad void during which a brief window opens. A window of color and motion and noise. It snaps shut, and eternity keeps being what it is, without you, the individual.

*cold shiver*

I don't want that. Oh god, I don't want that.

Most of my adult life, my belief about death has been that you find what you expect to find. Whether by divine intervention or an explosive firing of the synapses in the process of expiration, you experience heaven or hell, as appropriate to your religion, philosophy, or mindset.

This doesn't work for me anymore. And I don't know what will.

In the meantime, it's cramping me, because I want to talk about Nonie. And Nonie was NOT about her death. She was about her life. She was about everything she did in that Aunt Cranky way. She was about her outlook and her energy, and about all her tendencies, both endearing and irritating. She was about being, not ceasing to be, and that's the kind of thing I'd like to write. 

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