[y66]

The Death Deal

by Ron Padgett

Ever since that moment
when it first occurred
to me that I would die
(like everyone on earth!)
I struggled against
this eventuality, but
never thought of
how I'd die, exactly,
until around thirty
I made a mental list:
hit by car, shot
in head by random ricochet,
crushed beneath boulder,
victim of gas explosion,
head banged hard
in fall from ladder,
vaporized in plane crash,
dwindling away with cancer,
and so on. I tried to think
of which I'd take
if given the choice,
and came up time
and again with He died
in his sleep.
Now that I'm officially old,
though deep inside not
old officially or otherwise,
I'm oddly almost cheered
by the thought
that I might find out
in the not too distant future.
Now for lunch.

from How Long. © Coffee House Press, 2011. Reprinted with permission at The Writer's Almanac.

[y66]

I always thought it would be in a motorcycle accident. So I stopped riding.

[Rain]

I've been thinking about death these 2 weeks. I keep remembering my 3 dogs and 2 cats who've died - had to put blackie to sleep, which resulted in overwhelming guilt. (How on earth does one get sick and decline so quickly?) And then I look for blogs to read.

Hope this doesn't mean anything bad, but I certainly don't feel prepared and ready. Anyway, this is such a depressing topic. (Though the poem is nice).

[Hanoi5]

Death is just a part of life. It's probably one of the things which you better think about with faith rather than science.