I believe, maybe because I'm not yet old or infirm, that it's important to control one's end. That's often impossible – beginning with the accident of birth, which I also think about a lot – and is burdened by unbidden baggage, in my case, Catholic "original sin."
I began to think about how to leave. I've long thought that ideally I'd die in nature, perhaps by falling from a precipice. Something dramatic and quick! But accidents like that are hard to arrange.
The text of Because I love you so... draws on my experience with my mother. That said, the characters are neither she nor I but imagined amplifications of elements of both of us. I never had the opportunity to discuss this piece with my mother, who between the time I sent her the text and when we might have been able to talk about it, had withdrawn from the world. Whether she would have wanted to talk about it is another question. However, when she was still of "sound mind," she told me that she was not afraid of dying! That gave me courage. Was that just bluster? Did she keep it til her end?
The tale is quickly told, the truth is slow to find...
In memory of Claire.