"Your thought that death is contagious is not at all factual..... unless you're in China right now." Like a black Chiffon in a gentle breeze, I imagined death as a tangible figment to billow, waiting for the next splinter to tatter its edges on. It weighed heavy on my shoulders and became quite the feat to recognize the physical attributes of grief that are often covered under the cloak of your emotional turmoil otherwise taking center stage. The blunting became more of a challenge to deal with than if I would have fully submerged myself in the grief following a constant few weeks of having death on my mind. And not just in the way that, for years, would wake me up and only give me a moment of bliss before conjuring the determination that "today is the day I am going to die." Rather, in the way that the most unsuspecting people in my life fell victim to its grasp and there was not a single thing I could do about it except control how I reacted (or didn't). My Great Uncle Richard passed the third week in January. I knew it was coming, I had braced myself for the news. Unrelated and only two weeks later did I find myself making a fake floral arrangement with him and his wife Bonnie, whom owned Bonnie's Flowers, on my mind at the forefront of my craft. The Sunday of the last week in January I received a phone call as I got off the mountain I had been hiking (literally, not metaphorically, although it fits as well) that my Uncle Mike, hospice ridden, was projected to not make it through the day. Having had a year to brace for this as well, I had expected the call at any moment. A silver lining had poked its head through the door in August when we found ourselves talking to him about washing our food before we eat it or use it in cooking and how great Body Armour tastes. The day I found out he wouldn't make it, definitively, was the same day, and only seconds later, that I had found out Kobe Bryant was involved in a fatal helicopter accident that not only claimed his life, but seven others; his 13 year old daughter Gianna included. The nation shook beneath our feet whether we liked the sport or not. The grieving continued. Leaving my first chiropractic appointment on Monday, the phone call came through that Uncle Mike had passed earlier that morning with family around him. As we spent the days following trying to make arrangements to fly back for the memorial, another bought of gut-wrenching news was brewing. The following Saturday morning introduced an unsettling presence. A neighbor only my parents seem to be familiar with presented herself tenderly at the door to inform us with the news that a family friend, someone I had somewhat grown up with, had committed suicide between Thursday night and Friday morning. My previously goofy attitude in trying to keep the house vibrant quickly dissipated with how quickly I found myself falling to the step below me. I sat in a daze and functioned as such the rest of the day. Still unknown to this day as far as how it all makes sense, the final death hit me harder than any of the other three, for potentially a plethora of reasons. It could have been the last straw. It could have been the unexpected nature of it all. It could have been another kick to the stomach when I had already hit the ground. It could have been because this one seemed to hit closer to home. It could have been the fact that now, confirmed to be on the spectrum, I personally understand the drive to want to release the pressure. Through all of this I tried so fervently to work through the reason my body was responding to the previous few weeks in the nature it was. Where I was previously concerned it was due to lack of care for myself, I became quick to wonder if this was how my body was now reacting to what I used to feel emotionally. In lieu of often waking up with anxiety and finding myself miserable to be around, I'm now realizing the impact such a side effect as emotional blunting while on medication has on someone who has only ever made decisions, created, and conversed strictly based around her emotions. I recognize the residual pain, the lethargic nature of how I go through my days, and my inability to concentrate on a task further than I can throw it isn't a sign of me falling off the wagon with doing right by myself, it's what a body or spirit goes through when dealt such a shitty hand. I was angry at myself for days on end thinking I had plateaued, thinking I had put myself so far off to the side while doing the bare minimum for my own good that I became increasingly more frustrated and the former symptoms worsened. I found a moment of control, what I had been missing this whole time. I had found a moment of acceptance and brief curiosity for how others processed these types of emotions; medicated or not, unexpected or not, close to the deceased or not. It made me begin to question the brief rays of light I had begun to see through the clouds, if it was worth something to learn from or if it was just a fluke on mother nature's part. What I decided was to listen to the intuitive, empathetic, sensitive part of myself that had been medically hidden and learn how to pull from it all in the dark. My innate fear of death isn't something that will be shaken soon. Although I have less days where I wake up and immediately think "I'm going to die today, this is real this time," there is not a single reason I shouldn't be living as such. When I asked "what is it that you've learned from loss?" I received answers from only two people. Which ironically is how I understood the process of grief to happen: the lost and the one suffering from the loss. Nonetheless, the first response I received was "nothing is promised, so cherish what you've been given." The days someone smiles at me with no prior prompt, or asks me how my day was, or takes time to say 'that color looks wonderful on you' have become so much richer than they had been previously. Actions as SIMPLE as basic human decency make me so furiously realize that it would be foolish to not acknowledge what it is I've achieved or the opportunities presented to me are absolutely a blessing when they come. The final answers I got, both from the same person, ranged from "I can't control anything in life other than myself.... so I make the conscious decision to make life easy for everyone else. Life is too short to be an asshole," to "God has been totally faithful to me through all the ups and downs" and finished with a well wish in hopes he'd find the answers I was looking for. I can't say that I've found them, but rather that they've been disguised as fears this entire ride, fears that would be either conquered or forgotten the day my time has arrived. The fear of not leaving a legacy, for whatever its worth, presents the realization that if you give enough of the purest parts of yourself to the right people, that it will be next to impossible to not live on in some way. The fear that death itself is like the plague, contagious and willing to manifest itself in anyone who even thinks about what it entails. The fear of leaving a conversation negatively open-ended presents the active desire to either leave the silence to settle or fill it with solutions and affirmation, and to not leave an issue unresolved if you can help it. The fear of not having accomplished the things I set out to accomplish has pushed me to really consider the amount of ambition I have control of and how to put it to good use. Though all simple answers, I don't think these are the ones I'm reaching for. I may never get those. Under a cloud of haze I said to my therapist, after she spoke the words at the very start of this post to me, "I need to understand that these deaths were very specific circumstances. I'm not going to die [at 24] of old age. I don't have cancer..." she interjected "the pilot of the helicopter was not supposed to be flying in those conditions..." I finished "and I'm not suicidal." Calmly, with conviction.. "no, you are NOT suicidal." and with that I understood the only answer I'd be receiving until further notice was that, as I've always known, I need to let go of what I cannot control. Release the grip. Another answer came along: some things are easier said than done. "We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. as we were. as we are no longer. as we will one day not be at all." - Joan Didion