It’s not an exaggeration to say we’ve all narrowly avoided death. We have, in one way or another, whether literally or figuratively, dodged a bullet. Some of us have great tales to tell. For example, I know someone whose truck got hit by a train, flipped to the other set of tracks and got hit by another train. He is miraculously still with us. Some of us have simpler, quieter survival stories. I know many cancer survivors. Their struggles were heartbreaking and intense, but they were not as action-packed as my train track acquaintance.

Have I ever physically narrowly avoided death? Of course. There were the curves I rounded way too quickly on a Mississippi back road, when my car should have definitely rolled. There was the time I was nearly flattened by an eighteen wheeler that barrelled through a downhill red light. Even though I no longer follow any set religion, I still like to say I had angels those days. It helps me a lot in the dark times, thinking someone somewhere was looking out for me once.

It’s not uncommon for me to screech, “Oh my God, y’all, I just almost died!” Catastrophizing and hyperbolizing are things I do often and well. I know that seeing a spider or something equally mundane is not actually going to scare me to death, but what is living without a little theatrics?

Unfortunately, it is also not uncommon for me to spend long, introspective hours contemplating and planning suicide. I have a long list of reasons I should and different ideas for how I would carry it out, depending on where I am at the moment. If I ever act on my lowest low, it will not be an impulse act. I will know exactly what I am doing and why I am doing it. Don’t misunderstand, though, please. This is not a cry for help; it is merely a narrative from the point of view of a deeply flawed, perpetually drunken individual.

Death and I, we have a tricky relationship, and it is most certainly not a healthy one. It is illicit, intricate, intimate. I used to think Death was just the thing that took someone away--that it was the bullet, the disease, the oncoming car that effectually removed a person from the living. I know now just how wrong I was in that assessment.

I’ve seen Death, many times. Usually, she is just the thing I think I see out of the corner of my eye. In my darker moments, though, she comes clearly into view. I have seen her in the mirror, wearing my face, smiling at me knowingly, condescendingly. I have seen her holding out her arms, offering me the comfort I desperately need in that moment. I hate her and I love her. I want to know her, and I want to never see her again.

Death is a curse, a poltergeist that I wish I could escape. She is also the one being I want to know as well as she knows me. Have I ever avoided Death? I do it every day, and every day it becomes more and more difficult. Often she simply lurks in the shadows, but even that is still too close for comfort. When I see her in the mirror, she is coming ever closer and closer to the surface.

I know that one day her hand will reach out and ripple the surface of the mirror. I will be too frightened to do anything but run and hide from her then. But she will continue to come, and I will no longer try as hard to keep her away. She will step further and further out of her world and into mine. She will come sit in front of me while I am sobbing on the floor with freshly sharpened razor blades cutting their way through my veins. She will offer me her hand, and I will take it. She will slither across the veil and beckon to me from the other side of the busy highway, and I will go to her.

Those days are coming, I know. But these are not those days. These are the days I ignore her. I turn my head and my heart and my mind away from her. I feel her but do not see her. For now, I can avoid her, but like everyone else, I will not be able to escape her.

She hadn’t been home since the fight. Her mother’s words still resonating in her head, she put the last overnight bag into her old white Honda and started the long drive from home.

“You’ll never be anything but a burden to anybody!” her mother had shouted that day. “You’re just poison!”

She’d looked at the small woman in front of her, tears of sadness in her eyes. Years of hard work and worry had sunken in the mother’s cheeks and colored permanent black circles around the mother’s eyes. Prematurely gray hair was matted and damp from the excitement. The thin face was red, and small, over-worked hands were trembling from anger.

She had silently turned and left the small angry woman standing in the center of the tiny kitchen. The mother seemed so large as she was screaming, but as the daughter left, the mother seemed to shrink, being swallowed by all her worries, making the old kitchen look oddly large.

She’d last made that eight-hour drive more than three months ago. She had no choice but to make it again when the mother had called, heavily sobbing, and said, “Please come home.” She sighed as she hung up the phone. It had always been that way with them. Ups and downs marked the fragments of their relationship. The mother never made enough money and always blamed her for it. She learned early never to ask for anything.

The mother had her moments, though. When she was up, everything was up. She would do anything she could for her daughter, but usually the only time she did something nice for her daughter was to make up for something horrible she’d done. The daughter noticed that about her, too. She barely even liked to share her accomplishments with the mother because the mother never celebrated with her. The mother judged. Was scornful. Jealous. Never supportive. Never motherly. It got to the point where she would only tell the mother the essentials. “I got a job in Memphis. I’m moving there in a week.” Victories were not invited.

She switched lanes on the interstate, still thinking about that last fight. She had been for a visit before she moved again for her new job. She had gotten up early that morning as her mother left for work, cold and poorly rested. She just wanted to warm herself with a big cup of coffee, but as she’d reached into the cabinet for the sugar, a giant black roach scuttled across the cabinet in front of her face, and she jumped back, bumping the mug of coffee she had just poured for herself, sending it flying and breaking the cup.

The mother walked in as she was cleaning the mess and muttering something about the house being a nasty dump.

“What did you do?” the mother panicked, staring at the broken glass. “I barely get any hours any more. The plant has too few jobs for its employees. I can’t afford to replace that!”

The daughter exited the interstate, a blur of roaring cars flashed by her as she came to a stop at the end of the ramp. She planned to get some gas and a snack before she crossed the line into her home state. Kicking at the gravel, she refilled her gas tank. The afternoon was too chilly for her t-shirt and flip-flops, but she did not mind the cold. She glanced over at the next pump and saw a young father and his son making funny faces at each other through the glass while the dad pumped gas into his van. She grinned at the scene as she walked inside for a bag of peanut butter M&Ms and a Sprite.

“It’s just a mug, mom,” she argued as she wiped up the dark liquid with paper towels. “I’ll give you money for another one.”

“It’s not about the money, you ungrateful bitch! Nothing’s ever good enough for you! The mug probably didn’t live up to your standards, so you threw it! I heard you saying how nasty this house is. Well, it’s the best I can do.”

“A roach the size of my arm crawled through your sugar cabinet. You cannot blame me for thinking that is nasty. It’s disgusting. I bumped the mug when I jumped back. It fell, it broke, it was an accident.”

“I can’t help that the roaches get in! I can’t pay an exterminator. You should just deal with it. You’re the reason I’m stuck in this shit hole, anyway!”

The daughter could see the afternoon sun start to sink into the west through her rearview mirror. The golden light enveloped the tips of the evergreens, appearing to swallow all the world it touched. She took a deep breath and turned the radio up a little more, every mile bringing her closer to the woman who’d said she hated her own daughter.

“I did not do this to you,” the daughter said, indignation making her tone low.

“Yes, you did! I could have been somebody, but I got stuck here taking care of a bratty daughter that I hate! No one could love you. You are so unappreciative! You don’t recognize anything I’ve done for you or care about how much I’ve sacrificed for you!”

“What have you ever done for me? I worked two jobs to put myself through college. I sent you money every month, not the other way around. You’ve never done anything for me. You never even replaced that ratty-ass blanket that’s been on my bed since I’ve been alive. If you were going to be somebody, you would have done it. It is not my fault that you chased my dad instead of chasing your dreams. It’s not that I’m unappreciative; it’s that you don’t give a damn about me.” She grabbed her oversized purse off one of the folding chairs and began shuffling through it.

The thought brought fresh tears to her eyes as she pulled onto the road where the mother’s house was. Just a few more minutes and she would be doing what it took to put the woman back together again. The routine was predictable. They had been going around in the same circles for years. She was tired. Tired of the fights, the tears, the makeups. The mother never called at decent hour or at a time when it would be convenient for her to go home. But she had to drop everything. She always had before.

“I don’t give a damn! You’ve never been anything but a burden to me. That’s all you’ll ever be! You’re nothing but poison,” the mother cried.

The daughter finally found her yellow wallet at the bottom of her purse and threw the last of her cash, a ten-dollar bill, at the mother. “Here’s for another mug,” she said, taking one last look at the woman trembling with indignation. She grabbed her purse and slammed the door on her way out.

She finally drove past the last of the subdivisions of nice, big homes where nice, young, pretty mothers tucked their children in and read to them at night. She pulled into the driveway of their old rented trailer, parked, and took a deep breath. Her pale hands shook a little as she grabbed her purse and an overnight bag from the back seat.

She walked up the rickety steps to the dented back door and got out her keys. She tried to remember who had kicked that dent in the door. She had to jiggle the handle for a long while before the lock would release. “Something else to fix while I’m here,” she thought. As she stepped into the kitchen, the smell of freshly-baked bread wrapped around her like a hug. Her mother was slicing the bread and ladling bowls of hot broccoli and cheese soup—her favorite. Bowls of broccoli trees floating in golden broth were being set next to steaming mugs of tea. The bowls and mugs were chipped, and the paint had faded years before, but they were the best the mother had.

She should have expected the apology meal. It was what the mother did best. But even after years and years of fights healed with broccoli soup, it still somehow surprised her every time. She knew there would be cheesecake in the refrigerator before she even opened the door. She wondered how many times the mother had swept the floor, vacuumed the carpet since the fight. She had always put her worries into household chores—cooking, cleaning. One time she even hung all the rugs on the clothesline and beat the dirt out of them with an old softball bat. It was these moments, the ups, that made the downs worth it. As bad as they fought sometimes, they were still close. Always would be. It had just been those two for years and years. One knew just what to say to irk the other. Pushing buttons. It would almost be a game for them if each weren’t so volatile toward the other.

“Mom?” she started, nervous yet touched.

Her mother smiled, unable to say the words, tears already brimming.

She sighed. She was home.

I suppose I have to say “thank you” for bringing me into existence, or rather I mean I suppose I’m supposed to say it. I do not want to thank you, for you, ma’am, are a terrible Maker. You made me Death. You made me suck life from the sick, the poor, adolescents, children, infants.

I would not hate you so much, Creator, if you had not also given me a heart. You created me to run around this earth for millennia, snatching souls while their loved ones sat near, sobbing in uncomfortable hospital chairs. I watched twenty-somethings become widows, saw them wailing over their husbands’ coffins as they took their slow descent into the earth. I watched their husbands die in wars no one understood why they were fighting. I heard every gun vomiting its bullets. I saw every bomb commit suicide in the sand, desperate to take as many with it as it could.

If only, my Architect, you had built me without feelings! I could very easily despise you less had you instilled in me militant, unbreakable stoicism. I do what I have to do because I was made to do it. And yet, after centuries of harvesting souls, I still feel it in my bones when a human dies. I still shed gut-wrenching tears when I carry a toddler across that threshold. I have spent lifetimes doing this, and taking children never ever gets easier. When I walk with an old woman and see her gnarled, arthritis-ridden hands and hear her weak heart and forced shallow breaths, I know I am taking her to that so-called “better place.” But don’t you see, Master, that I just took someone’s grandmother away from them? She taught someone how to sew and made her grandkids hull peas when they were kids, and you would never have known how much pain she was in because you were not there. I was there.

I still ache for humans every single day. What is it called? Empathy? It hurts. All I can say is that I pity you, Madame, for you are a sad and desperate, and you are alone, and you will not live forever. You are temporary. But I am Death. I am Death and I am a Story and I am everlasting. I will carry your cold black heart away from you at some point, and I will do my job joyfully for once. Carry on, Creator, for you and I are both very busy doing what we do.

Yours Truly,

Your old pal Death

P.S. I’ll be seeing ya

I suppose I have to say “thank you” for bringing me into existence, or rather I mean I suppose I’m supposed to say it. I do not want to thank you, for you, ma’am, are a terrible Maker. You made me Death. You made me suck life from the sick, the poor, adolescents, children, infants.

I would not hate you so much, Creator, if you had not also given me a heart. You created me to run around this earth for millennia, snatching souls while their loved ones sat near, sobbing in uncomfortable hospital chairs. I watched twenty-somethings become widows, saw them wailing over their husbands’ coffins as they took their slow descent into the earth. I watched their husbands die in wars no one understood why they were fighting. I heard every gun vomiting its bullets. I saw every bomb commit suicide in the sand, desperate to take as many with it as it could.

If only, my Architect, you had built me without feelings! I could very easily despise you less had you instilled in me militant, unbreakable stoicism. I do what I have to do because I was made to do it. And yet, after centuries of harvesting souls, I still feel it in my bones when a human dies. I still shed gut-wrenching tears when I carry a toddler across that threshold. I have spent lifetimes doing this, and taking children never ever gets easier. When I walk with an old woman and see her gnarled, arthritis-ridden hands and hear her weak heart and forced shallow breaths, I know I am taking her to that so-called “better place.” But don’t you see, Master, that I just took someone’s grandmother away from them? She taught someone how to sew and made her grandkids hull peas when they were kids, and you would never have known how much pain she was in because you were not there. I was there.

I still ache for humans every single day. What is it called? Empathy? It hurts. All I can say is that I pity you, Madame, for you are a sad and desperate, and you are alone, and you will not live forever. You are temporary. But I am Death. I am Death and I am a Story and I am everlasting. I will carry your cold black heart away from you at some point, and I will do my job joyfully for once. Carry on, Creator, for you and I are both very busy doing what we do.

Yours Truly,

Your old pal Death

P.S. I’ll be seeing ya