thoughts of my death, after his death

In the days following Bo’s death, I realized that I was no longer afraid of death. I’m not sure if I was “afraid” of it before…but when you always feel like you have so much do in life, so much to accomplish, you don’t think about death. I mean, who has time to die? (I made this same “speech” to my students, twice — on the day I went back to work after Love’s death, and even two or three weeks before that when I was talking about a former student of mine, and a classmate that had died. Damn, I talked about death a lot before Love died.).

But it was a different feeling now that Bo was gone. I felt like if he could be just taken, all out of the blue, a strong Man, a fighting Man, a driven Man, a great Man, a loving Man, a wonderful Person…then so could I. When I stared at the scene of his accident, I had intrusive thoughts. I envisioned myself walking right across the street through oncoming traffic and just…well, getting hit and dying. When I was driving to the Memorial, I thought I would get in a car accident and die. What did it matter if I lived or died? What does death care what I was doing or trying to do in my life? Death doesn’t care. And nothing makes sense though the living will try to make sense of it in any way they can.

And my real feeling? If Love was dead, then I just wanted to be wherever he was. I just wanted to be with him. I don’t believe I ever told him that while he was living. No, actually, maybe I finally did. He always used to ask me what I wanted [from him]. Ask, is not a good word for what he was doing. He was like demanding, but in a soft way…like pleading..or begging. It is hard to describe. I wouldn’t answer him for most of the times.

I’m not suicidal. At least if you ask me if I am, I will tell you that I am not. I believe that people have a right to end their lives but I don’t believe that certain people [in certain categories] have the right to do it. I happen to be in that category [of people who should not]. If you admit to being suicidal, your ass will get Baker Acted. Who has time for that? But apparently my GP thought I was at risk because when I went to her (I wanted something to take the “edge” off the pain and plus I would need this visit for the “record” aka job), she sent me to the ER.

I do have a family member that told me that Bo’s death just heightened their awareness of death…and that they think about death all of the time. I didn’t know this about them. Bo’s death hit them hard…and I felt helpless because I didn’t know how to help them AND me. When I would cry, they would cry. They would retreat to their room, try to sleep all day. They stopped eating. They were mirroring everything that I was doing. They were afraid to drive. They were afraid for me to drive at night. Bo would have been devastated to hear about this. This was the one family member that he got to interact with more than the others. (He was very “into” my family.)

I began to think of the living and how I didn’t want to leave a mess for them [upon my death]. Our job only gives us something like $39k or whatever you were last making, when you die, unless you choose another life insurance option. I thought about how that could last like, shit, less than a year. Chump change. I thought about how I should get a better life insurance so that all my debts and posthumous things would be covered. I don’t want anyone having to foot any bills out of pocket, or let things go into foreclosure, collection, etc…at least. And it would be nice if there were extra.

And I thought about a will. How many times at the doctor or hospital have they asked me do I have a will? It needs to be done. Not that my life is that complex. But even just some statements about this and that..or even what I would like for my friends to have.

I talked to my mom about this. She admitted that she and my dad don’t have anything in place…but that it was necessary.

And so I told my dad: “Don’t spend lots of money on me when I die..for my funeral. Just cremate me. Then throw me in the ocean and let me find what I am looking for.”←insert Love’s name as I know exactly what I meant when I said it, I just didn’t want to tell my dad this. “Let that money [that would be spent on funerals and such] be spent on the living.”

I don’t want to die. I think of the living and how it will affect them and that alone gives me grief. I don’t want them having a hard time trying to live because I am dead. I can’t die right now. I have a couple things that are not quite yet finished, but really close. But how are these thoughts any different from anyone else’s? Death doesn’t care.

If there is an afterlife, I picture Bo being pissed that he died..like, Daminit, man! That almost makes me giggle. But then I picture that if he could feel in his afterlife, that he would feel sad, too, looking at how everyone has been affected. But they say there is just happiness in the afterlife. Who knows? The happiest I have been in years, was with Love.