If you had told me when I was younger that I’d spend nearly every day thinking about death, I would have said you were crazy. And yet, now, I think of death all the time.
I don’t fear it. Nor am I suicidal. Death became an integral part of my life when my stepdaughter died in 2006. That was followed by the deaths of my two dogs, then my two cats over the next 10 years.
There were some guys I sponsored in AA who died. Then a coworker who died too early from cancer.
Every one of these affected me deeply.
Then my wife died in 2018 and my entire world changed forever.
Then I lost my little Sunshine Puppy a few years after my wife died. She was my last living connection to my wife.
Now, I think about death every day. I think about my wife. I think about my dogs and my cats. I think about my stepdaughter. I think about my elderly relatives who passed away many decades ago. It has all become part of who I am, what I am and how I think about the world.
Sometimes the memories are poignant. Sometimes bittersweet. Sometimes just sweet.
My days aren’t dominated by thoughts of death, but they are always there, just below the surface.
I wish it wasn’t this way.