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Am I Going To Die Today?

By Trish Faber

     Am I going to die today?  It’s a thought that generally doesn’t run through my head on a regular basis.  Should it?  Should I be worried?  A young man woke up this morning filled with boyhood dreams of flying with the birds and soaring above the clouds.  Did he think he was going die today?  Probably not, but he did.  Flew his small plane into the side of an apartment building in Manhattan.  Terrible accident.  Terrible tragedy.  He flies no more.

     A wonderful woman I knew, a neighbor, crashed her car on a bridge one rainy day returning home from some innocent shopping.  I wonder, as she was brushing her teeth that morning and combing her hair, did she look in the mirror and say, “I’m going to die today?”  Do you know?  Is there a feeling you get?

     Did that pilot look up and see the building before his plane hit?  Did he scream?  I can only imagine as his plane lost altitude and spiraled downwards, he knew there was going to be a crash.  But die?  We never think we’re going to actually die.  We may get seriously injured but we won’t die.  That happens to other people.  Not us.

     We’re a society of risk takers and adventure seekers.  We push the limits as far as we can, jumping from planes, diving with dangerous sea creatures, loving every minute of it.  But sometimes the parachute doesn’t open and the sea creature attacks and we’re left again to wonder, “Am I going to die today?”

     I know all about death.  I watched bed side as disease and sickness ravaged the body and mind of someone very close and special.  In this case, she knew she was going to die.  It was just a question of how long she was willing to fight and let me say, she fought with the courage and ferocity of a lion.  When her body finally betrayed her and she slipped away, I was devastated but lucky.  I had the chance to say goodbye.  Tell her I loved her.  Tell her thanks for everything.  Tell her how proud I was to be her daughter.

     People die everyday of sickness or in accidents, because of war and malice.  We pause for a moment and say “oh how sad” then continue to talk on our cell phones and chomp French fries.  It’s so much easier to look the other way and pretend that these tragic things don’t happen to you and me.  But they do.  All the time.  And we never know what to say.  Somehow “sorry for your loss” seems so lame.  So many times we say nothing and stand there feeling embarrassed and inconvenienced by someone else’s loss.

     I’ll always remember last words my mom whispered to me before she died.  She opened her tired eyes, smiled and said, “hi”, like today was just any old day.  Something so casual, so simple.  Did she know those would be the last words she ever spoke?  I think she did.  She knew her time had come.

     When I drive over the bridge where my neighbor died, I always clench the steering wheel a little tighter, keeping my eyes straight ahead, trying not to envision the accident.  I think of her family and a lump forms in my throat.  I can’t help it, that’s just the way I am.  Then I think of my own family and as I turn off my light to go to bed at night, I’m thankful that I didn’t die today.