I'm Dying

For 47 years, I never thought about death.

When I was 9, my grandpa was dying of a brain tumor and he moved to Denver to live with us for the final few months of his life. I remember one night I was in the bath and the water was warm, not hot. My grandpa came in to brush his teeth and forgot what he was doing. He stared down at the sink, frozen, for the longest few minutes of my life before my mom yelled upstairs to see what he was doing. He died shortly after, his funeral was sad, and I went back to playing baseball and video games.

When I was 19, my dad nearly died from a clot in his stomach. I flew home from college, visited him in the hospital for a couple days, and flew back. I was worried but optimistic. My dad got better and I went back to playing tennis and chasing girls.

When I was 29, I briefly considered my own death after attending the most wretched, soulless wedding in the history of wretched, soulless weddings. The rehearsal dinner was at a Maggiano’s in a strip mall, the groom was (is) a piece of shit, and I knew the marriage would last forever and be miserable the entire time. It was an existential moment for me, as I’d been with the Boss nearly five years at that point and needed to, as they say, shit or get off the pot. For the first time, I started thinking about death by asking what I was gonna do with the rest of my life.

When I was 39, my dad started dying of cancer. Though I talked to him on the phone nearly every day in the year leading up to his death, I rarely went to Colorado and I wasn’t that close to the details of his demise. I knew about the sores in his mouth after the first round of chemo but even now as I write, I can’t remember much else. The cancer wouldn’t go away and my dad called it quits after about a year when a tumor started growing out of his nose. We all went to say goodbye and I watched his heart stop after the doctors ramped up the morphine as much as they could. Less than a week later, I started what would become the most challenging job of my life and completely buried my head in the sand. I talked to my mom most days on the way home from work but we didn’t talk about my dad much. I, in particular, generally avoided the topic of death. I was busy with work and four kids, and mourning my dad’s death was, in theory, important but, in practice, painful and distracting.

When she was four years old, Panini (15) went to a museum exhibit on Pompeii and cried herself to sleep for the next few months cuz, for the first time, she understood that death was real and that, at some point, it was coming for her.

None of that stuff ever mattered to me. Jaws didn't scare me and cancer was for the birds. I've always felt like the Black Knight from Monty Python's The Quest for the Holy Grail who, after getting two arms and one leg chopped off, yells, "I'm invincible!"

But then this past year, it hit me: I'm not invincible.

I'm dying.

I recently got my first colonoscopy. Despite a few hemorrhoids, the colon looks good. But, see, my dad died of kidney cancer, my paternal grandpa died of colon cancer, and my maternal grandpa died from a brain tumor, so let’s just say it runs in the family, I’m at high risk, and I'm probably dying of undiagnosed colon cancer.

If I'm not dying of colon cancer, I'm probably dying of diabetes. Last summer I went to the doctor for aforementioned colonoscopy referral and because I hadn't been to a medical professional since I was 18 (because those who are immortal don't go to the doctor), he decided to do a full check-up, including blood work. He discovered and informed me that my sugar levels were too high and that I was officially pre-diabetic. Pre-diabetes is pretty much the same as diabetes and diabetes is the number #1 killer in our country, so by the transitive property unless I stop grabbing handfuls of Crunch Berries, I am dying.

I recently got sick and it lasted for almost a week because I'm middle-aged, my immune system isn't what it used to be, and, well, I'm dying. I also refuse to take medicine because taking medicine would be an acknowledgement that I need medicine, and if I acknowledge needing medicine now, then fast forward 30 years and I’ll have one of those pill boxes with my daily meds which I need to take or else I’ll die.

I have the hips of an octogenarian, my thumbs hurt from texting, and I need to lift weights once a week or my little Auschwitzy body starts atrophying. I am vigilant about pruning my fungus-infused toenails and I have a reminder in my phone to cut my ear and nose hair on the first of each month. Sometimes it occurs to me to masturbate not because I’m horny but because a good friend of mine says that if I don't, I'll get prostate cancer and die.

I'm tired all the time. I get migraines if I don't eat, drink, or sleep enough, I fall asleep grading papers at my desk, and I nap in my car at work. On Thursday afternoons, in particular, you can often find me in the fully reclined passenger seat of a blue Nissan Leaf in the school parking lot. On Wednesday nights, due to low-intensity tennis and the consumption of one full beer, I get six hours of sleep rather than the mandatory eight, so I am barely functional on Thursdays. From the second I wake up, I am obsessed with my forthcoming nap, so much so I that I so carefully deliberate over my parking spot at 7:40am because if direct sunlight were to hit the passenger seat between 1:30pm and 2:30pm, my nap would be interrupted, I would get a migraine, and I would die.

I've given up on self-improvement (as dying people often do) and have thrown whatever remaining time and energy I have into teaching Panini how to hit a slice backhand and Broosevelt (10) how to shoot with his left hand. As you know from previous posts, they're no good, but I'm still way too emotionally involved and often wake up in the middle of the night obsessing over why they care so little, why I care so much, and how if Broosevelt doesn’t start wearing a cup when he plays baseball, he’ll get hit in the balls, he won’t be able to have kids, and the family name will die when I die.

I’m declining cognitively. I can't remember the names of any of OG's (13) friends. I read more slowly than I used to and the National Geographics are piling up. Word retrieval has never been my strength but it is now officially a weakness: In the past couple days alone, I couldn't remember the words "merge" or "silverware."

I’m way too emotional, perhaps because the Boss and/or I are perimenopausal. I cry watching Ted Lasso, the rage I feel when Broosevelt swings at a bad pitch seems unhealthy, and I get absolutely apoplectic when the Boss leaves a cabinet open in the kitchen.

I have one foot in the grave professionally. My students used to feel like younger sisters and brothers. Then they became my nieces and nephews. Now I’m older than most of their parents, they tease me for wearing my reading glasses, they give me blank stares when I reference Sixteen Candles or A Few Good Men, and they apply new meanings to old words such as sell, cap, and drip. I pity my students, I hate their stupid, anxiety-ridden, enabled/disabled generation, and I should probably stop teaching and start "volunteering" aka dying.

I’m psychologically trapped. As death is now imminent, I feel an urgency to write more, play more, live harder, etc. but I also feel the weight of death and the hopelessness of survival, so I don’t do any of those things cuz what’s the point. I'm obsessed with clickbait articles in my AppleNews trough such as "Can this Chinese fruit curb aging?" but I don't follow any of the advice. There's a safety recall on aforementioned Nissan Leaf but I refuse to take it to the dealer because I want it all to end like Thelma & Louise.

I'm all alone. The Boss tells me she loves me but is asleep by 9:45 every night after she and Panini watch Bridgerton without me. At Boni’s (10) soccer games, I sit as far as possible from the other parents. I don't play beer pong with the other 4th grade dads because I don't like beer pong or 4th grade dads. The only "friends" I do have are forced to see me every week because I reserve their tennis courts. Most Fridays end with a solitary walk-about in my neighborhood and falling asleep on the couch by myself halfway through an episode of an erotically underwhelming episode of Game of Thrones.

But worst of all, the true sign that I am old, alone, and dying is that my own children have abandoned me. I used to feed them, bathe them, and wipe their little butts. I used to take them to the blue park, make them peanut butter and honey sandwiches, and read them Goodnight Moon before they went to bed. We used to have Michael Jackson dance parties, play "Somebody That I Used to Know" on the piano together, and watch Goonies for family movie night.

Now they wipe their own butts and take out the Barbecue Lay’s whenever they want. Now they’re on their devices playing Fortnite or watching TikTok. Now they only talk to me when they need $10 or a ride to the Red Line. Broosevelt's the only one left who will still shower with me.

I find myself holding on for dear life to the 13-minute car ride to school with Panini each morning. I’m usually annoyed at her for being a couple minutes late and I shame her for her short shorts. She gives me a grade for the U-turn I make after we come out of the alley. Sometimes we listen to NPR and talk about Gaza, and sometimes we listen to 104.3 and "Back That Ass Up." Sometimes she gets mad at me for being so tired and quiet, and sometimes she lets me pet her head. Sometimes we argue over who gets to wear the giant sunglasses I keep in my car. Sometimes, randomly and sweetly, she says "Hello" and gently touches my cheek with her index finger. When I drop her off at school, she always asks to stay in the car for "just one more minute." I say no because I have to get to work but really I’m saying no because our time together is ending anyway cuz she’ll be off to college in two years and we won’t be able to drive to school together anymore and then I’ll never ever see her again and I’ll be all alone and dead.

At least sometimes I let her wear the sunglasses.