Staying

While browsing NPR the other day I came across a review for a book called If I Stay (Forman). The concept was intriguing to me, so I picked it up from the library yesterday, and before bed I cracked it open to read a few chapters before going to sleep.

Um, yeah. Definitely stayed up waaaaay too late because I couldn't put it down. Definitely finished it in one sitting, which granted is not that difficult with a 200 page book, but is not what I was expecting to do at fifteen minutes 'til sleepy-times. I think that is a pretty good recommendation for a book, personally. (Also it is quite possible I cried.)

But back to the intriguing concept. To quote Publisher's Weekly: The last normal moment that Mia, a talented cellist, can remember is being in the car with her family. Then she is standing outside her body beside their mangled Buick and her parents' corpses, watching herself and her little brother being tended by paramedics. As she ponders her state (Am I dead? I actually have to ask myself this), Mia is whisked away to a hospital, where, her body in a coma, she reflects on the past and tries to decide whether to fight to live.

I will not give away what Mia chooses, or why, but I will say that it made me think long and hard about what my choice would be in similar circumstances. There was a time (my early/mid teens) where I was utterly unafraid of death. It's not that I thought I was immortal or invincible, or that I had a free pass to heaven (I wasn't really a Christian even then), or anything like that- it's more like I just... didn't care. I didn't care one way or the other whether I was alive or dead. I wasn't going around looking for death, but I wasn't going out of my way to prevent it, either. (I remember one time looking over an edge and thinking that the only reason to be careful was that the drop wouldn't kill me.) As far as I was concerned, there was pretty much an equal draw to both- Mom on one side of Existence, Dad on the other (at that point in my development my brother didn't count as much as his own entity- which just goes to further illustrate how deeply stupid I was at that stage.)

I have things to live for, now, which I have to say is pretty nice. Of course the downside to that is that I now feel something akin to a fear of death. Although it's not really a fear of death per se- it's more like a sadness at leaving behind what I love. My Afterlife beliefs aren't exactly fixed (that's a subject for another post entirely), so I guess you could say there is a certain fear of the unknown... not that it will be bad (I really don't believe it will) just that I don't know what it will be. And I'm anal retentive and I like to have a plan, damn it

Anyway, in light of the fact that I now have this wonderful abundance of people and things to live for, reading If I Stay made me wonder how much of it I'd have to lose before I'd go back to that lack-of-fear. Obviously I have my mother's example that you can survive a life-mate's death, even be happen again. But then I think- she had children. She had responsibility. Would I bother, if I didn't have that responsibility? I think I probably would but... until you're faced with it, I guess you don't know. And if I were to lose him, and my mom, and my brother, and my best friends, etc. etc., all in one bizarre fell swoop- how much loss could I survive?

I sincerely hope I never have to find out the answer to that question.

Of course it helps that I have a certain amount of derision for suicide as the easy way out. It's quite possible that even if everyone I ever loved suddenly dropped dead I'd keep going from sheer stubborn pride.

(Here, have another photo of Chicago from my wandering life-mate.)


EDIT: You know what, after giving it even more thought, I'd have to say it's not a fear of death so much as a love of life. Yeah, that's what I meant.