My former co-worker is dying. She talks of loneliness, and I grieve with her. Sometimes, I see myself in her. Imagine myself as that woman in that bed with the wig and the pale face and sagging skin and bedsores all over my body. Childless. Loveless. The fact that she has no children speaks to me, especially because of the whole PCOS thing. I wonder if my condition is punishment for a wish I made at a time in my life when I didn't really believe that wishes could be granted.

This is the first time death is actually facing me, breathing near me. In the past, I’ve toyed with death through suicide attempts, by playing a joke to friends and family, by being reckless and careless. Death was an abstract thing, intangible. But this time, death is an actual thing, real, in a form that I can touch and speak with, and it scares me. It scares me because I see that it is full of despair and regret and this feeling of panic, a mad rush to dig oneself out of the wrongs and misgivings of one’s life, or one’s lost life. Dig dig dig. Call this friend to make amends. Call that one to forgive. Dig dig dig through the address books and the photos and the past and the now. And all it is… is a mad rush to dig oneself out of a grave only to be dug back in, 6 feet deep.

I don't think I've ever fully grasped the idea of death. It always happened far away... to someone else. I mean, this is happening to someone else - but in closer proximity than any other encounter with death.

A group of us went to visit her a few weeks ago and she was filled with joy. The simple reminder that we had her in our thoughts, that we made time to visit her lifted her spirits. The day after that, she went into cardiac arrest and was resuscitated. She did not sign a DNR form. It's strange, how Death breathes. Just the day before, she was full of life, talking to us, gossipping about the good nurses and the bad nurses, about the handsome priest from the church across the street who came to visit every day, about how the ensure gave her gas, which is why there was a stack of them beside her bad, unopened, untouched. She told us she didn't like that nursing home by work because of the old ladies who worked the reception desk... the three dandelion haired ladies, she said specifically. I'm keeping that image forever... dandelion hair.

I expected that after that visit, she would make some kind of miraculous recovery. She would beat it and be back to work, wig and all. But her health took a different turn, and now she's in a hospice. And everyone knows what it means to be in a hospice, so I honestly, just don't understand why and how health can take such a turn.

I'm forced to think about my own life and my choices at this age. She never said this directly, but I hear it in her voice, that her only regret is that she did not start a family of her own, that she was not a wife or a mother. She worked all her life, passionate about her career. She used to come in to the office pale faced from the chemo or this treatment or that treatment, and I always used to say to myself, now that is someone who is committed. You almost feel guilty calling out sick for a little cold.

It seems as though that one's fear of death is more linked to the past, than to the future... if that makes sense. When death faces us, we look back and think of "what could have been" and not "what still can be done." On my deathbed, I think I'd rather say the latter. It is a less tragic end.

I guess all this just shook me. The time really is now. I don't want to be 60 and wonder if I could have gotten my Ph.D. If I could have written that novel. I want to say, I can still write another.