MORTALITY IS CRIMPING MY STYLE

 Recently, I read about a woman who did not want to be cremated at the end of her life, "because it might hurt." Really? What is it you don't get about neurons being dead and total bodily death? "Dizzy bitch," as my dad would have said.

 

I am working up to buying a plot in our local cemetery. Hasn't happened yet, but it is on my to-do list for sure. Don't want my kids to have to fuss with this end of life stuff. Or, as my second son baldly said recently,

  "I hope you get rid of this clutter because I don't want to have to deal with your sh.t when you die." (And to be frank, our house is FULL of sh.t. Too many books, too many clothes and shoes, etc. etc.) We are working on this, motivating by guilt and by a desire not to cause our kids too much work and worry.

  Love that comment. I adore people who are totally honest about the end of life--what it is like to age before, and what it is like to reach the end of this earthly life. As someone who has gone through 2 cancer surgeries, months of chemo, etc., honesty just fills my heart.

   I like the idea of having a green burial under a tree somewhere, 

except it is just too much trouble for this cognitively-impaired broad to do, or, as Elaine May once said, "Just put me in a taxi and drive me somewhere."

The reason this came to mind--other than another looming birthday in a few months--is that I was "putting on my face" in the mirror, 

doing hair, penciling in eyebrows (a casualty of chemo), swiping on mascara, then lipstick--is that I thought, "It is time to pluck those stray eyebrows, Annie!" Then I thought, "Why bother, they are all going to be ash in a bit anyway."

Man, that sure is like tossing water on an erection, that is. I still want to look pretty and slim-ish, 'cause I grew up in the 50s and 60s when all females were meant to be pretty, and if you were smart, then you should hide it. (I lied once about the A+ I got in a Biology mid-term, 'cause, again, you weren't meant to be TOO smart.)

So, putting on makeup, even when you know that the time will come when it no longer matters, is still part of my identity. I have told my husband numerous times, "When I stop wearing mascara, just bring out the body bag."

 

And what about those slim leggings? Those legs are going the way of all flesh at some time too, girl, but I cannot help it: I have to keep doing 10,000+ steps per day because I take pride in the slim jams in my yoga pants. (Beyond Yoga has the best ones.)

But lest you worry about how frivolous I am, just to remind you: I still read Thomas Merton, Ekhart Tolle, the saints, Daily Readings, pray ("Oh, God, please please please let me accept my mortality without running screaming from the room."), Jon Pavlovitz, Rachael Herd Evans, and other numerous and sundry heavy spiritual writers.

 

Some days I am pretty accepting of the mortality thing; other days, not so much. I am waiting to see through this "thin place," between life and death. Any woman who has given birth knows that is a thin place. I hope one day, whenever and wherever it happens, to see the faces of my beloved dead in the room with me, holding out their hands and saying, "Come on, Annie, let's go!"