I Can Barely Take Care of Myself

and Shannon. I wasn’t sure which of our moms would fill the Estelle Getty role but I always secretly fantasized it would be Tracy’s mom because she was the most liberal. She put Tracy on birth control when she was a teenager and accepted the fact that teenagers were sexually active. I felt Mrs. Bowen would be the least likely to judge elderly Shannon, Tracy, and me if we took home any Viagra-popping octogenarian men to our wicker-furnished, pastel-wall-papered home. Tracy and Shannon are both now happily married with children but we can probably still shack up Golden Girls style in 2042—because no matter what kind of developments happen with stem-cell research, men will always die first. That’s a fact.

DURING THE “Stand-there-and-we’ll-form-a-line-and-hug-you-because-you-just-got-married-and-we’re- exiting-the-chapel” part of my post-wedding ceremony, one of my dearest friends, Morgan, whispered in my ear, “I’m so happy for you and I just realized I’m gonna die alone.”

Morgan is hilarious and if she hadn’t mentioned something morose and inappropriate in the moments between my wedding and the reception, I’d have felt let down. I’d much rather consider Morgan’s lonely death than suffer through a friend of the family hugging me tight and singsonging into my ear, “Be careful on that honeymoon! Those babies will start arriving sooner than you think!” I wanted to whisper back to that woman, “Oh, don’t worry. I don’t want kids. We’ll be relying on my birth control pill and pulling out. But just in case, not only have I researched great luaus on the island of Kauai, I know every Planned Parenthood–type establishment within a five-mile radius of our hotel. And if I can’t get an appointment, think of how lush and tropical the flowers are that grow between the cracks of the cement in the back alley where I’d get that Hawaiian honeymoon abortion.”

But those words “I’m gonna die alone” stuck with me through the reception as I Vogued with my mom on the makeshift dance floor at a colonial inn in rural Massachusetts. Dying bothers me—a lot. But aren’t we all going to die alone? Death is like getting a ride to the airport. Sure, someone can escort you to the curb, but it’s against the law/laws of nature for your ride to see you all the way through to the departure gate/pearly gates. The scariest part of death for me is not the moment when I might feel pain, gasp for my last breath, and shut my eyes forever (or leave them permanently popped open, staring, like all of the bodies that are found in the woods on Law & Order).

The scariest part of death for me is the afterlife. Part of me hopes that there is an afterlife because I mostly enjoy being conscious, and if the afterlife is one big feel-good session where there is light 24/7—just like what happens in Alaska for a few months out of the year—count me in. But part of me is nervous that if absolutely nothing happens when we die—if it’s just lights out and you’re not even aware you’re gone—I would still somehow be aware that there is no afterlife. I’d be in the dark thinking, Well. Here I am. In the nonafterlife. In the pitch darkness. Doing nothing. All by myself. What time is it? How long is this going to go on?

This might be because when my mom would tuck me in at night I’d ask her, “What happens after we die?” and she’d tell me that we go to heaven to be with God. She said it was just pure happiness. There was no stress in heaven and angels sang and we felt peaceful all the time. I asked her how long we stay in heaven. And she got very close to my face, rubbed my head, and said, “Oh, you never, ever leave heaven. You are there for all of eternity and eternity never ends. It goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on…”

On and on and on? Wait a minute! What if I started to get bored during all of this holy bliss? I could never leave? I’d really be happy all of the time? What if I wasn’t and everyone in heaven started to annoy me? I’d be in eternity with a bunch of annoying optimists and it would. Never. End?!?! Hold on, are there any pamphlets I can read about hell? I’d like to hear all of my options before I commit to any one afterlife real estate.

As you can see, there is not much, including a husband or a baby, that can soothe my irrational fear that the afterlife is a never-ending office party where people seem happy and I stand back watching, wondering, Is everyone really this well adjusted? What’s wrong with me?

And with regard to dying alone, I’m not even sure if I want to die with a ton of people around me. What would I want with a bunch of happy, healthy, younger people surrounding my deathbed, all looking on anxiously, waiting for my death rattle? I think dying surrounded by my children would be annoying. It would remind me too much of being a kid and having to go to bed on Saturday nights knowing that my parents and sisters were going to stay up until one to watch Saturday Night Live. There were no VCRs, DVRs, or Hulu yet, so I wouldn’t have been able to catch up with it the next morning. Dying with my children surrounding me, I’d think, This is what motherhood is all about. I birthed these kids. I raised these kids. I sat home at night worried about them while they were out having fun and breaking curfew. Now that I’m old enough to party with my kids, God is being the biggest buzzkill parent of all, calling me home for my curfew, and I’m missing out on all of the fun. My kids are sitting here so that I am not alone when I die but really they’re just rubbing it in my face that they get to stay and I have to leave.

I’ve told my friends who fear dying alone that if they never have a child who will take care of them in their old age, they can come to my place, provided that they bring their own cot on which to take their last breath and some kind of attendant who can take care of the body. I will sit with them until almost the very end and at the moment when their soul is about to pass I will quickly pull out a cardboard cutout of myself, place it in front of their fading eyes, and run out my back door to avoid hearing the death rattle of a good friend.

I didn’t like the movie Stand by Me. I was terrified that any second those boys would stop bonding and find that body. I do not like dead bodies. I know that you’re thinking, Nobody likes dead bodies, Jen. I beg to differ. Some people perform autopsies for a living! Nobody is making them do it! Some people even put makeup and wigs on dead people for a living—I’d be too scared to be alone in a mall, working as a mannequin dresser. Recently, in the Hollywood Hills, some hikers found a human head in the woods on the side of the trail, after their dog sniffed around and pulled it straight out of the plastic bag in which it was hidden. This is why I don’t have a child, or a dog. Both of them always want to play with things that aren’t toys—like Mommy’s vibrator and plastic bags filled with heads.

When I go hiking, I want to look straight ahead and listen to a Dr. Wayne Dyer self-help podcast. I want to get contemplative or listen to Madonna and pretend that I’m in a music video. I have no time to stop and let my pet/kid off its leash so it can run to the edge of the woods and start playing with body parts. I’m not going to wear a fanny pack just so that I can carry hand sanitizer on the off chance that I have to wipe crime-scene DNA off my toddler’s tiny hands.

If you’re married or have kids, that doesn’t mean you won’t die alone. You could be groggy from last night’s Ambien and mistake a white paper napkin on your counter for a slice of cheese pizza. A few bites in and you start to choke. You collapse to the floor, gasping for breath; the sink is so far away and all you need is some water to wash it down. You eventually give in to the comfort of the white light that you see in front of your eyes. You lay your head down and die, holding on to shards of a half-eaten napkin… all of this can happen when your husband is driving the kids to school.

No matter how many assurances you think you might have that you’ll be surrounded by and cared for by your children at your last breath, that kitchen floor awaits, ready to take you before your time. I’m safeguarding my home and saving my life by not bringing children into it who will be so messy that I’m required to keep lots of napkins on our countertops. And I take other precautions around the house: I don’t engage in any antics like shower dancing or autoerotic asphyxiation. Ultimately, I am afraid of pulling a Mrs. Sanders. That’s another reason I don’t have a dog. If I do fall to my death while changing a lightbulb, I don’t want my face to be licked off before somebody comes to find me.

11. It’s None of Your Business, but Since You Asked…

Feel free to skip this chapter if you’ve ever been at a cocktail party and asked someone whether he or she wanted to have children, and after that person said no, you pressed on and either told the person what to do (have a change of heart and have a child) or asked follow-up questions such as: “Well, are you open to adoption?” and “What does your husband/mother/father/sister/brother/psychic/proctologist/mailman say about your selfish refusal to pass on your DNA and contribute to the excessive number of double-wide strollers on narrow city sidewalks, not to mention the selfish preservation of the sanctity of your bedroom by not adding a crib and doing whatever you