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It’s not death that troubles me, it’s that I wished it on my family.
November 25, 2020
I really do hate this time of year. Mom has pictures of our family on the refrigerator. I looked at them yesterday, for a long time. Dead, dead, dead, dead. That’s how many people on the refrigerator are dead.
Is it death that troubles me? No, I don’t think so. It’s all the holidays I assumed would always be the same, without even knowing I assumed. All the Christmases with my family around the table, the same conversations, the same shared history. It’s all the times I rested in something, thinking it would always be that way, without realizing how much I took for granted.
And then, it’s all the pain caused by my illness and not being able to see it, to name it, and no one else being able to either. It’s all the regrets I don’t have, about skipping family gatherings, because it was just too painful to be around the people I thought would always love, support and understand me, when I finally realized that was never the case at all.
It’s the pleasant, warm sensation I get when I look at those people on the refrigerator.
Dead, dead, dead, dead.
It’s not death that troubles me, it’s that I wished it on my family.
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