20 years

I don’t have much experience when it comes to death. My grandfather on my father’s side died before I was born. Funny, isn’t it. He lived through a war, through battles, through heartbreaks, through pain and joy and anger, only to be brought down by his own body.

For my grandfather it was his heart that gave him away. The treachery of his own organ was his inevitable undoing. He had the first attack at 49. Far too young, far too early. But he survived. It was the second one that took him. 69. 20 years later. Long enough to watch my dad grow up, to watch him begin to take shape into the semblence of a human being. My dad was 20 years old when he lost his father.

Sometimes, when I was little, my dad would tell me stories about my grandfather. Stories that made me giggle till my chest ached, stories that made me want to cry, stories that made me long to know this man, this man whose’s blood courses through my veins.

My dad says he would have liked me. Me, my headstrong, stubborn, frustrating self. He says I would have liked him too.

My dad had a heart attack at 53. The betrayal, as it turns out, was not due to the smoking, or high blood pressure, or multitude of unhealthy habits my grandfather had. No. Genetics, their own DNA was the cause. Undone by the essence of their being. But he survived.

And they pump him full of pills and treatments and strategies and appointments. But he is still my dad. But for me, the thing that changed most is what I fear. I fear history. I fear DNA. And I wonder if I will have 20 more years with him.

So, how would I like to die? I think the answer is obvious. I don’t want to. I don’t want my heart to stop beating. I don’t want to lie, cold, silent, unmoving on a metal tray. Blue lips, grey skin, decaying body.

I want to live! I want to see the Northern lights and travel to Greece and climb a mountain and swim the depths of the ocean. I want to live!

Inevitably, I’m going to die. One day. One day I will stop running and singing and jumping and writing. But until then, until my life is taken from me, I’m going to close my fingers tight around every moment of existence. And death be damned, I choose to live.