December 18, 2020. Sheltering at Home Week 40
I’m getting ready to die.
Just in case.
Most of the time, I stay safely in denial when it comes to death – my death. It’s not going to happen to me for decades. If then. If ever.
But now that the coronavirus has taken out more than 300,000 Americans — 80 percent of them age 65 or older — and now that at least two of my high school classmates have succumbed to covid, I’m seeing that I might be mortal after all. I could die. I could die soon. I could die next month.
If that’s the case, then obviously I need to get organized. Get ready. Get things done. Prioritize. Declutter. Get going on my gotta-do list.
There’s a lot on that list:
- Get the family photos — thousands of them — scanned and digitized.
- Fix the decrepit garden stairway before somebody falls and breaks a hip. Me, for instance. Or worse, Jon.
- Finish my second book.
- Start on my third book.
- Get a mammogram.
- Get a haircut.
- Send some money to the grand- and step-grandkids’ college funds.
- Send some money to the county food bank.
- Do something about that sweet little essay I wrote years ago, inspired by my teenaged daughter’s messy bedroom. It’s buried somewhere in an obscure file inside another obscure file in my laptop. Nobody knows about it. What if I get covid and wind up in intensive care with a ventilator down my throat? How will Christina know that there’s a love letter to her lost in the hot mess that is my laptop?
I could spend the rest of this afternoon adding to this list. Fill it up with all that stuff crying out to be done.
Instead — to heck with my list. I’m going to do the one thing I feel like doing today. I’m going to go down to the basement, locate the fake Christmas tree, bring it upstairs and spend some quality time with myself, wrapping Jon’s Christmas presents — which is my idea of fun.
If I have just weeks to live, I’m going to spend my last weeks on earth doing what I want to do.
Does that mean I’m ready?
If this post did not get you down, then you might be up for “The Trouble With Daffodils — And My Writing.” If you’d rather treat yourself to something beautiful, go to “A Flower Garden Just Before Dusk.”
Life is an adventure, constantly interrupted with unexpected joys, chores, duty, dirty dishes and butterflies . . . occasional surprises from children and puppies, good pizza and lemon pie . . . One could do worse than approaching it all through an aperture of loving kindness.
Hmmm. Lemon pie. Worth sticking around for.
I thought I was the only one who thought like this😄. Thanks Barbara. Always enjoy your work.♥️
Hi Diane. When I write something like this, at first I’m wary of sharing these thoughts publicly. But then I figure I’m probably not the only one. So you and I are probably not the only ones thinking maybe we might die after all, and sooner than we’d hoped.