Dear Death,

I know that you and I ought to talk. You know, sit down and have a long, open conversation. Well, you and I both know that is not going to happen. I don't talk to you, or about you. I don't even think of you if I can help it.

Sometimes I can't. Sometimes, when I lie in my bed, when the darkness surrounds me and I enter that place of unwelcome thoughts, fight through clammy hands of worry, fear and dread, then sometimes, I think of you.

And thoughts of you always go hand in hand with panic, sadness and sorrow. Panic, because I know one day you'll take me with you. Sadness because I realize how fleeting every moment of life is and how little I cherish the time that I have. Sorrow because of the people you have already taken from me.

I wish you and I could be friends, that I could think of you and don't start hyperventilating. It is not so much the thought of leaving this place, but the fear that your side is a big black nothing. That I and everybody else just cease to exists. Completely. The blackness, the nothing, the not being conscious and vanishing, that is what gets me. That is what terrifies me.

So I hunger for every experience, relish the pain, the joy, the good and bad. I live, with passion and fire. Every day. But when my time comes, please go easy on me. Have a hand free to walk me to the other side.

Just do me a favor and let us meet a long time from now. I still have a lot of stuff that needs doing.