Die With Me

Greg is about to die from pancreatic cancer. I am his chosen companion. Early in our relationship right after he learned he had this terminal condition, he asked me to watch a movie with him. It was a movie about two fighter pilots like his father. One white one black. At the end of the movie, the black guy died alone. And the song at the end of the movie was you are not alone. I got upset about it. I got upset about Greg facing the end of his life feeling alone. And that's exactly what he said in tears. One day. He said he was afraid. He was so freaking afraid. I asked what he was afraid of. Cuz he had always said he's not afraid of dying. And in fact he's ready to die. That was one of our very first conversations is that we were both ready to lead this world. So what is he afraid of? He thought it through and thought it through. He said it has something to do with watching his mother die. She looked very scared. And I asked him again what is so scary about dying? He said I don't want to die alone. I asked, what if I was holding you? Would that still be scary? He said no. He said thank you. What if that's how things were? What if humans never died alone? What if when humans die, they always go and pairs? Pairs? What if our job as human beings was to choose who we were going to die with? Instead of going through live looking for someone to date and marry and divorce, we actually go through life picking the person we're going to die with. Maybe it's like a sci-fi movie. An alternate reality. A different planet. There's no such thing as dying alone. We have no idea what's on the other side of death. Everybody still has all the same guesses about the afterlife. But what is not negotiable is that you go in pairs. When one person goes the other goes. Your only choice is who that person will be. If you can't find a person, then in fact you are doomed to go into the scary, unknown alone. Maybe the whole book is about people being scared of exactly that. So everybody is in a hurry to pick their partner.