Dead cats, crows feet and cancer.

I think a lot about how we live our whole lives in the pursuit of a distraction from death. You live your life looking forward to “the next thing” and one day those things run out. We’re all faced with death in our lives no matter our culture, religion or background. It is a part of life and a part of us, an inescapable truth- that we usually try to avoid thinking or talking about. Lately it’s the only thing on my mind.

Sometimes when I notice a small change in my appearance, like the pores on my face getting a bit bigger, or that annoying little crow’s foot in the corner of my eye; I pause and remember that I’m only a decaying organism walking around with this far out idea that I’m somehow important.

I mean in the scheme of it all I’m very insignificant. Sure, I’m important to my children, my family and friends and co-workers, but I’m also very finite.

It leads me to think that although I seem like this force to be reckoned with in my home life or my career, I too am mortal, fragile, fleeting.

I didn’t think about this too much before she left. I’m only 24 I shouldn’t even be worried about death. It only began when I watched my eldest sister get devoured by cancer at the age of only 29. Her birthday was a few days ago, she would have been 30.

I missed her so much on that day but I couldn’t light a candle for her, I couldn’t cry or pour a drink out. All I could bring myself to do was hold her ashes in their little while envelope close to my chest and then take a bath later and think about my own mortality and wonder; who would be holding my ashes when I died?

Did you know that when you’re cremated you don’t really get ash back? It’s bones really, the body is burned so hot that all but bones are burned away, they then take your bones and toss them into a giant blender if you will, and then you’re returned to your loved ones.

My sister is in my closet right now, in a tiny while envelope that’s in a little brown leather satchel type make up bag. I haven’t figured out what to do with her yet.

I only just got her ashes in the mail from Indiana a couple weeks ago and she passed in may. I received the big yellow package in the mail and couldn’t find the “Right time to ooen it”. It sat on my stand in my room glaring at me each time I came in and out. I would say things like “Not today sis I had a bad enough day”.

I realized later though, that on her birthday, my favorite kitty died unexpectedly and suddenly at the veterinarian’s office and when I opened her envelope to see my sisters ground bones, it actually made me feel calm and at ease after what happened to my kitty.

I can’t describe the feeling but somehow holding your siblings ashes and peering in on them to see the different sized pieces of her scattered across a piece of paper really puts the whole “I’m sad my cat is dead” thing into perspective.

I would do almost anything to bring my sister back, sometimes I like to think she’s back home in Indiana, playing with her kids, kissing her husband and talking with her mom. I know she isn’t.

Knowing someone as special and kind as my sister was ripped away from everyone she loved and everything she built in this life, doesn’t make me feel very special. I don’t know it’s like if it could happen to her, it could happen to me, and it will happen to me, because I am human.

We’re all born with this notion that we’ll die old people in our beds while sleeping peacefully, but that’s only if you’re incredibly lucky. All over the world right now there are people dying, some from disease or malnutrition. Some are in horrible accidents, some choke (how my great uncle went) some are born already gone an some tragically make a decision to end their life.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever feel like myself again, or that life has meaning or that I have a great purpose or calling, but I do know that I miss my sister, I miss my cat and I’m terrified of the wrinkles on my face. I’m so bored of distracting myself away from death. The more I try to fight the idea that I am a corpse that is just shy of expiration, the more I want to look death in the face and tantalize it. Right after my sister passed away I drove my car way too fast whenever I was alone in it. Now I fixate on safer things like visiting oddity and taxidermy stores, buying old books and playing with skulls and old keys and sitting on the floor looking through unknown family photos from the 1940’s.

It is all so interesting to me how we are here one day and gone the next.

If you or anyone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or feelings, there is another way, don’t give up.

Suicide hotline: 800-273-8255