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I've had so many family members who've died that I don't expect to reach old age myself. In fact, there is no one in my extended family over the age of sixty.
--At the age of twelve my cousin accidentally hung himself in the bathroom as he attempted to re-create some stunt he'd seen in a horror film. My aunt and his sister found him.
--My grandmother died of a stroke when I was six.
--My father died of a heart attack on his 47th birthday. We found him sprawled in his easy chair when we got up to go to a celebratory brunch that morning. It had been his second heart attack in two weeks but instead of going to the doctor after the first one, he just stayed home from work claiming to be sick with the flu.
--My grandfather died of a stroke when I was sixteen. He'd been in a VA hospital in West Virginia following an earlier stroke for some time and clearly had been hanging on in the hopes that his son, my father, would come out to see him. My father couldn't deal with that shit and never went, and my grandfather died shortly after finding out that his son had passed.
--My mother's parents are both dead but I never met them because she left home at the age of seventeen and never spoke to them again. Her father was an abusive alcoholic and her mother (I believe) was an undiagnosed bi-polar. She didn't even go to their funerals, but I don't blame her.
--My uncle (on my father's side) died of a massive coronary at the age of 29.
--Another uncle nearly died after being taken to the hospital with meningitis. While he was there they discovered he had 80% blockage in his arteries and probably would have dropped dead of a massive heart attack within a year. He's alive today only because he came down with another dangerous illness!
--My mom is now 54. When she recently made out her will with my step-father, it really freaked me out.
People always ask me why I don't want to get married and have kids. Why the hell should I? I only have thirty-some odd years left! If this makes me sound depressive, I'm really not. I don't drink or smoke and try to take care of myself, and have pretty much accepted my bad family history. So I'm pretty content and happy with life, because I really enjoy what I have. That sounds really morbid I guess but the more you deal with death the less it messes with your mind, I think.
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