Author’s Note:

Near Death Experiences

Broadly speaking, understanding the concept of mortality happened for me in three phases.

The first phase was realizing that things die. This happened for me listening to my older brother scream and sob while holding the flyswatter to his chest to keep my parents from using it.

The second phase was realizing that even I will die. This took somewhat longer. Going to a religiously affiliated elementary school, and attending church (almost) every Sunday, I’d always known that death was looming just over my shoulder. Still, I’ll never forget that dizzying, freefall vertigo, sitting in my Sunday school class one morning at age thirteen, as my mind stretched too thin, trying to wrap around the idea that there would be an end, and whatever came after would be eternal—so infinitely long that, eventually, I might forget whatever came before completely.

The third phase, the most terrifying of all, was realizing, truly internalizing, that my parents will die someday, too.

This is the story of that.