And When I Die
Don’t think I’m morbid — but I just can’t stop thinking about the end.
I started fantasizing about my death when I was a kid. My childhood finale fantasy included no cause, only hordes of mourners weeping in unison, practically raising the roof of the world with their collective wailing. Good grief. Great grief.
Every person who had ever done me wrong — fake friends, mean teachers, mocking siblings, and parents who wielded belts as disciplinary tools — would reconsider: Why weren’t they nicer to me when I was still one of the living. Once they cried out all their tears, they’d have to figure out how to carry on without me. It was like a scene straight out of what Dorothy Zbornak dubbed “Blanche: The Miniseries” in an episode of The Golden Girls where Blanche Devereaux told a possibly tall tale about the time she faked her death as petty payback to her entire hometown for “valuing my personality over my perfect body” and awarding her the Miss Congeniality runner-up prize in the Miss Magnolia Blossom contest.
