I know that everyone dies. I’ve known this for as long as I can remember, since I was a child and I had nightmares of losing my grandmother, a woman who will turn 90 in August and remains sharp and active, a fact for which I am grateful.
It’s not that I want to fight death and aging, the way the characters did in Gary Shteyngart’s great Super Sad True Love Story. People are born, and people must die. And in between is the living, with all of the happiness and suffering it entails.
Sometimes I wonder who I think I am to ask people to rally around a cause just because it affects me and my family. Everyone has their issues. And in many ways in my life, I’ve been far luckier than most. Still, I want more time. And I want more quality time, not time spent feeling my body get weaker and my abilities abandoning me like sailors leaping from a shipwreck. I have to remind myself that I’m only 37, and that this is not old, despite the way my body looks and feels. That it’s OK to wish for more time. Read More>