I know I write about death a lot. It’s on my mind. I’m all the time having to go to the funeral home. And that’s fine. I love a lot of people. That’s what you do if you’re brought up right. You go see them one last time. Sean Dietrich writes about his dad who died when he was 14 almost every day. It’s tiresome, but it’s what he knows. And his heart is obviously bleeding out right there on the screen. You don’t have to read it.

I used to be terrified I would die at the happiest point of my life. Then I came to the realization that to do so would be the best way to go. I consistently wished on birthday candles and pennies in fountains that I would always be as happy as I was at that moment in time. That’s unrealistic. Of course we’re going to have highs and lows. I’ve had some doozies. But, as Shelby taught us in Steel Magnolias, “I’d rather have five minutes of wonderful than a lifetime of nothing special.” Yeah, I’ll buy some stock in that. You have to have darkness to appreciate the good times. We’re spoiled. We forget how good we’ve got it.

Anyway. What I’m here to tell you is that if I get eaten by a shark, it’s ok. I went out thrashing and bloody but that sure beats dying pinned in a car upside down because some doped-up addict ran me over and made me wreck my beautiful car. If I get shot by a crazed ex-lover or one of his flavors-of-the-month, I’m going to be mad as hell that I didn’t see them coming and take them out first. If I fall down my basement stairs and break a rib that punctures my lung, or break my femur and die that way, I’ll think what a stupid way to go. Cancer is common, and excruciating, and painful for everybody who loves you. To me, that would be worse than dying in a fire. It takes longer and you can’t stand anything while it’s killing you. If I die of a heart attack or a stroke before I’m 85, I’m probably angry about that, too, because how many people do you know that smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and stuff everything they can get into their mouth and park as close as they can get at the store and still live to a ripe old age? Life isn’t fair in many aspects. If I get carried off and brutalized by some stranger in a parking lot, know that I went out fighting and quite literally spitting mad. It makes me grit my teeth just thinking about it.

So trust me when I say that if I die in any vast body of water, that’s just fine with me. I went out happy, probably stuffed with oysters, and more than likely naked if I was in the Gulf. I wasn’t scared for long. Sharkbait! Woo-ha-ha!!