My parent died suddenly many years ago. He was getting better and I slept. I woke up and he was gone. I was 10. I am 33 now. I have carried this paranoia with me my entire life that I’ll sleep and wake up to death. Sometimes coping is better.

In these times where the uncertainty is amplified beyond my imagination I don’t know how to navigate a paranoia that has no end to it. I don’t know when this will end and how many more will leave us collectively and individually. I, like everyone else am doing my best to hang on.

If you only have hurtful things to say then keep quiet. If you can’t see a way to exist with the understanding that someone might be hurting in so many ways that are invisible to you, then please self reflect and build the home within you. Just stop pushing each other’s humanity.

Thank you to folks for their kindness under this thread. Death, I feel is traumatic in its circumstances and then how it is dealt with afterwards. There are so many preventable deaths in our country be it through a health crisis exposing absent social services or a war economy