The specter looms shadowy. I tell myself I should not go there. Trouble is anything I google leads me there. I ignore, I stay away from research. I rank the possibilities from the banal to the unthinkable. Menopause with all its problems, I can handle. The terminal illness I am not sure how to feel about it. The problem with speculating is that the possibilities are endless. Early-stage with full recovery and remission. Mid-stage fighting and surviving with losses tangible and otherwise. Terminal with months or perhaps a year to live.

My mind always veers to the worst. I think about the family I will be leaving behind. Girls yet to become women. I will leave a mom sized hole in their lives. Saathi may or may not be able to stretch and fill that gap. Perhaps, it will take the coordinated efforts of Saathi and Amma to approximate what I am to my children. Perhaps, my passing will just be that. Gaps closed over with no lingering traces of my presence.

Of all my identities, the mother is the one I seem to care about the most. Saathi will survive. Amma will too. My siblings will mourn my passing but not really miss me. My cousins will probably remember me at reunions. As for friends, they are not even on the periphery of my thoughts. My legacy is in my words. The words that will live on until buried in digital debris and marked for oblivion.

As for myself, I realize I have no bucket list. No last wishes. Nothing I want to check off before I pass. I have lived the best life possible.