on motherhood and mortality

i'm scared of death. always have been.

in an uneventful day, the thought of having to meet my end someday passes my mind sparsely and it doesn't affect how my day goes any. but at night, when it's quiet and i'm turned off at my phone that's finally turned into the boring attention-sucking brick it's always been designed to be, the fear comes at me a little more aggressively.

it becomes visceral, crippling, anxiety-inducing, breath-stealing—almost like death itself is already knocking at the door downstairs.

in the few instances i've mentioned this fear briefly to people, i've heard them say, "yeah that's fear of the unknown," or, "because you're sinful and so you're scared you might not spend eternity in heaven." to be fair, i am still very much Christian even if i have long left any congregation (my faith tells me i can go to God directly), and i do get scared i might go to hell and suffer forever. but when i really do think about it, it's not even those things.

i'm scared of not being able to live anymore. 

i don't think i am alone in thinking about death this way, but i'm finally writing about it like this today because ever since i became a mother a little over a year ago (counting from when i found out i was expecting), the fear has slowly turned into something else: sadness with a little bit of resentment. anger almost, but the emotion feels almost a little too unoriginal for what i'm actually feeling.

my beautiful baby boy is the best thing to ever come into my life. before him, i was lost and my feet never seemed to touch the ground, as in i don't think i ever found my footing in life ever. when my baby came is when the world started to feel like i belonged anywhere, which was only then too that i realized just how distant everything and everyone felt. he didn't simply make my life "better" in the sense that there wasn't any "good" to improve from; no, what he did as a wee little newborn was far more profound: he made me truly live for the first time.

and that's why i'm now seeing life and mortality in this new light. how unfair...

that i didn't ask to experience and even eventually love life yet someday need to leave it, how unfair.

that there never was a need for me to be born into this world yet i was somehow given a soul and a consciousness that will inevitably fade one day, how unfair.

that we'll never know how or when death will come for us and there might not even be a chance to say a proper farewell when it does, how unfair.

that i could birth the most wonderful thing to ever exist, care for him for as long as i could, and not be there when he needs me again when he's gray and old, how unfair.

i'm feeling torn. i don't know how my head and heart would be like if i'd never met my son. but at the same time and almost as strongly, i'm sorry that i've thrust him into this life, with the same non-control as i have in someday leaving it.

mama wants to be with you forever and ever and ever

i don't want to die. i want to be there for my baby forever. i'll only go when he goes, but since i can't, i'll forever be in tears awaiting my departure.