2️⃣063: faces of death (1/??) ⚰️

I'm 30 years old, and I've never had a truly significant death in my life.

If you're aware I only have one living grandparent, you might think that's not true, but it's still accurate. I did meet and spend time with all of my grandparents. I remember playing Hotwheels with one of them every time I visited. That's about it. I've never felt mourning or a longing to see them again. I can't say they greatly impacted who I was as a person (at least that I'm consciously aware of).

Another grandparent's mind started to slip as I was still young, and I again don't feel like they had much of an impact on shaping who I am.

The third grandparent passed away when I was a bit older and understood things better (as much as a young teen could understand), and I remember thinking, "Man, that sucks. I guess that's just what happens in life, though." That's not to say I didn't cry. I was overcome with emotion thinking about the fragility of life, but it didn't stick with me, it still doesn't, and it didn't change anything about how I approached life at that moment.

And I’ve known a few other people who have passed, but I still can’t say any of that stays with me in a way that makes me understand what it means to grieve and know loss.

I won't hold it against you if you read those last few paragraphs and thought to yourself, "I've never thought this dude was a sociopath, but we can't rule it out now." As I was writing, I thought exactly that (and think about it all the time).

Is something wrong with me because I don't mourn these people that so many others consider some of the most important in their lives?

My Twitter-diseased brain immediately goes to

I don't know.

I'd say you should make assumptions about me based on what I do, but strangers and lifelong friends both seem to get things incredibly wrong about who I am through their interpretations of how I conduct myself and food taste preferences, so I'm not sure what's the best way to go about any of this.

(also, that last sentence was really fucking long, even for my standards)

One thing I'm sure of: my lack of experience with loss makes me think about how I'll respond when the moment finally comes ❤️‍🩹

So you may think I'm just ignoring you by staring at my phone for a few moments, but I appreciate every second we have together. I appreciate it when we talk on the phone, when we text, the good morning messages with inspirational quotes, or when you tell me how much you loved reading my email (or wish me good luck writing it). I appreciate every one of those instances and think about what if it were the last one we ever have, because one day it might be, and I don't want that day to arrive and make me look back and think I didn't appreciate when I had You.

And I think about how I'll celebrate the life of the people I will eventually lose (when I lose them) instead of drowning myself in thoughts of what could've been.

It's okay if you still think those original feelings (or lack thereof) make me somewhat of a weirdo, but I'm also trying my best to appreciate the people who love me and find happiness in me, and I think that balances out somewhere ⚖️

In the spirit of a lack of loss, here are three moments from my life where I think I should've probably died or been so seriously injured that I never fully recovered. Except I came out of these instances practically unscathed (which is a lot to say, given my injury history 🩼🤕 ).

To my parents, I'm sorry you had to read that shit at the beginning, and I'm sorry I never told you about these almost-accidents before. Don't worry, though.

We outchea still kicking, still writing, still smiling 🤠

One of my friend's childhood homes has a small pool in the backyard. It was built in the corner of their backyard area and did pretty well for its size. The pool was just a couple of feet away from the house, right next to where they put a low basketball hoop on the roof's edge that jutted past the door to the living room. This was a great idea in theory, but not when you realize how slippery that tile was when the floor was wet from people splashing in the pool. As kids, we'd run around falling over and over like it was nothing, just shaking it off. But one of those slips came close to being my last slip ever. I remember grabbing a rebound, running back to take a "corner 3," and slipping so hard on the edge of the pool that I fell into the water head first with my feet pointing straight into the air.

You might think this is no big deal, just a semi-close call. But if the pool had a straight edge (like most pools do), I would've smacked my head on the cement on the way down. But the fact that it was curved and I slipped in a corner made it so my head was about an inch away from the cement as I slammed perfectly unscathed into the water. This seems like a pretty unremarkable story. But let me tell you, considering the speed with which I fell and the historical performance of a slab of cement against the human body, I'm 100% certain my head would've cracked, and blood would've started gushing. It would've been straight to the hospital after that. Two inches to the left, and you probably wouldn't be reading this email right now. I think about that regularly when I remember how precious life is.

Here's a shitty sketch of the pool and how I fell so you can understand how close I came to my final moments: