So This Is Christmas

Well, it is 5:04am on Christmas Eve and I am awake and thinking about death. I haven't been sleeping well this week at all. Maybe it is because my hormones are all off kilter and they are making me crazier than usual. Maybe it is because Andrew has been spending a few of the nights at Grandma's house and I am worried about him. Maybe it is because I have had too many Christmas sweets and I am so amped up on the sugar that I can't calm down. Who knows?
For someone who claims to believe all that I claim to believe, I have a huge fear of death. I fear the actual process, or more accurately, the moments right before the actual process, I fear what might happen to the people around me without me (because apparently I am indispensable and they are utterly incapable), I fear being alone after the people around me die.

It is not as though I am unacquainted with death.

I have seen it be a blessing - a release for those who were suffering and wanted to go home to their Savior. My grandma who had a stroke and complications from diabetes. Grandpa who had lived with muscular dystrophy for 30 years and was so tired. My aunt who fought breast cancer while it spread through her body. These people lived fully to the last minute, and when it was time to go they were at peace. I am sure that they had regrets, fear, reasons to want to stay, but they knew what was happening and they trusted that, in spite of their fear, everything was going to be okay; that God's plan was greater than their own and that they were going home.

I have seen death come as a shock, one that left everyone reeling and seasick. Sarah being murdered on her way to school. Joel, Pierre, Todd and Nicole, dying in car accidents, high on chemicals, alcohol, youth or fear. Brandon the cross country runner whose heart failed at age 18. These people were my friends and I now remember high school through a lens of tearful phone calls and stunned rumors sweeping through the stands at a soccer game, a concert, an English class. Kids and parents trying to explain the letters sent home and how this could have happened to one of us. Awkward teenagers trying to find the right way, the cool way, to demonstrate grief and failing, causing more pain. Burying the truest parts of grief deep inside and contenting each other with platitudes and one-upsmanship.

When I was a child I had horrible nightmares about one of my parents dying. The worst one, and the one that re-occurred most often, involved my mom drowning in the ocean while I watched from the beach and tried to convince my dad that she needed help and he assured me that everything was fine. And now I have nightmares about my own death, or the moments right before, where I think about all my regrets, all the things I should have said to the people that I loved, all the things I wish I had done differently. And now, when I am awake in the middle of the night, or I am alone in the middle of the day, I think about Justin's death, or Andrew's. I am consumed with fear.

I spent many sessions in therapy trying to deal with this fear. I read books about people who have had near death experiences and lived to talk about them. I repeated mantras like, "I made the best decision that I could with the information that I had at the time" (even though I know that is a lie). And, more recently, I substituted, "God has already considered everything that you are worrying about, and His sovereign plan includes the end of this story." But still the fear remains, and I wake up in the middle of the night and think about death.