Death,
I got a text from my dad today. A photo from the back of an ambulance, captioned, “Just busted my face in the driveway”. Three days in the spring semester of my first year of college, here I am, researching the soonest train that would take me the 300 miles back home. Sure, my mom told me I don’t need to come home, that everything will be alright. Sure, I have classes that I shouldn’t miss. Sure, he’s going to be fine—but what if he’s not?
At the ripe age of seven, my best friend was my aunt. That is, until you took her from me. When I found her, lying still in bed, asking me to call 9-1-1. I was seven when I saw my best friend for the last time, carried away on a gurney.
Mortality is something every one of us has to face. There’s a reason people say, “The only guarantee in life is death and taxes.” But, for a seven-year-old, death shouldn’t have been on my mind. I should have been wondering which friends to invite to my sleepover or what doll I wanted for Christmas. Instead, I was facing great existential crises, wondering, If my aunt could die, does that mean my mom will die? Does this mean everybody I love is going to die? What’s going to happen when someone else dies? What’s going to happen when I die? Oh my God, I’m going to die. Now, twelve years have passed, and you still consume many of my waking (and sleeping) thoughts.
I didn’t see my beloved aunt before she died. Years later, I learned that she died at home in hospice care, not an uncomfortable hospital bed. See, that’s what happens when you are seven years old and experiencing such a tragedy—the adults don’t let you in on the details. They all wanted to protect me from the darkness in the world, but it was no use. I had already seen firsthand the darkest force of them all: you.
So. My dad hit his head, is going to the hospital, and I’m galaxies away. I feel like I’m seven years old all over again, so helpless to the world’s random whims. The homework due at 11:59 PM tonight now feels daunting, and I can’t focus as the worst-case-scenario thoughts raced around my head. Closing my textbook, defeated, I started writing this letter as some sort of therapy. They always say that facing your fears is the way to overcome them, after all.
When I was fifteen, I tried exactly that. Taking matters into my own hands, I decided that if I ended it all myself, then you’d be less scary, and maybe I could regain some semblance of control. It was silly to think that I could have the upper hand against you, my foe. You’re the boogeyman, the mysterious force hanging above my head, lurking in the shadows. You’re arrogant, taking what and whom you please with no remorse. You, death, are my worst fear, my enemy, the one thing I wish I could make go away and the one thing I know I can’t.
But maybe your inevitability makes you less scary. There’s serenity in the uncertainty, if I really think hard about it. The unknown can make one appreciate things more, live life to the fullest, so long as you don’t let the anger and grief and questions weigh you down. I’ve never been good at that last part, but I will get better. I have to.
You may be unavoidable, but that won’t control me as it did at seven. I see now that you want me, all of us, to submit to your all-powerful force, to feel your misery encompass us. Well, let me tell you this: I won’t let you win. No matter how much fear and hate I hold towards you, you are still the only guarantee in life—at least one can evade taxes. But I don’t want that daunting fact of life to paralyze me anymore. I will conquer you and your ugly darkness by living a light, beautiful life. A life without fear, without constraints, without you.
I don’t think my dad is actually going to die today. But, on the off chance that a strange, unknown force of nature decides it’s his time, I won’t make the same mistakes I did when I was seven. If, God forbid, my dad doesn’t make it, I won’t allow you to eat me alive once again, to shield me from all the good in the world by encompassing me in the bad. I refuse to be scared. My fear gives you power, and no matter how much you may hurt me, I will never grant you such power again.

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