Your Love Is My Love.

Call it what you want, but a world without me was not a world that I wanted to see.

It's not as if death was ever a stranger. In my early years in Guyana, death came with a party. My dad would take me to "dead yards," gatherings where his grieving friends would console each other, but not with tears or quiet hymns. You wouldn't know death had visited — no wailing women, no hushed tones. Instead, the sharp smack of dominoes clattered against rented tables, while bottles of high wine trembled under each round's triumph. The night was alive with music, oldies thumping through yard speakers, as though we were celebrating life itself.

The next weekend, we'd do it again. Some weeks, two or three times. Wake rice, beer, and dominoes became the ritual, and with each gathering, I'd meet more family members I never knew were alive. I didn't grow up fearing death; it was almost a kind of reunion.

In those early years, death felt like part of the family gatherings — a familiar, almost festive occasion. But high school brought it closer in ways I never anticipated.

The T-shirts.

In high school, while students covered pimples and scribbled names of boys they liked, I was coordinating funeral outfits for after-school trips to funeral parlours to say goodbye to friends who wouldn't make it to class again.

Keegan's death was the first to cut deep. Thanksgiving weekend, 2007. He was killed at a dance competition meant to bring together the youth, to give us something to look forward to. Someone on stage lost the crowd's favour, and when boos filled the air instead of cheers, gunshots erupted, one piercing through Keegan's ear. Keegan wouldn't make it back home to his mom that night, and his Thanksgiving dinner would remain cold at the dinner table as his mother held his hand and prayed in the ICU instead.

He would have thrived in this TikTok era. But he didn't make it to see Vine. Instead, he was just alive long enough for us to print his face on T-shirts with heavenly gates, a Bible quote to match.

That was all we had left of Keegan.

That was all we had left of the countless young faces we saw after school for the last time — laid to rest, dressed in their finest fit, their parent's attempt to keep their adolescence alive. I was haunted by those T-shirts: faces of friends now gone, captured in clouds and angel wings. I could never wear them past the funeral day. As funerals piled on, I made a quiet vow to myself: that was never going to be me.

The plan.

I had it all figured out. I'd get rich, live my life, freeze my body when I'd seen enough, then wake up every few decades to check on civilization, enjoy the latest delicacies, marvel at the new technologies, then return to my cryonics chamber until it was time to rise again. Legend has it Walt Disney managed to do this, and that's how his magic lives on. Walt Disney is also one of the richest men to ever live. So step one: get rich.

But I wasn't yet rich two weeks after my mom died. And there was my son, Avery James, standing before me with questions that remained with the living:

"Why did your mom die? Does that mean you have to die? What happens when you die?"

He was growing, coming into himself, but I still saw him as my baby. Each question caught me off guard. Each answer I avoided. I told myself I was protecting him from something too big for his age, but if I was honest, I wasn't ready to face these questions myself.

A world without me? I couldn't imagine it. But Avery was beginning to.

Four months after.

Four months after my mom's death, he was still on edge. I tried everything — redirecting him to his dad, suggesting he call his Aunty Toya — anything to avoid this conversation. Time and again, I thought his curiosity would fade, but it only grew.

Once, when he accompanied me to work, my boss asked him how he was doing, and without a beat, he said:

"I'm fine, but my mom — well, her mom just died."

I couldn't shake him off forever. Every question made me uncomfortable, the feeling rising up and shutting my whole body down with a shiver. I found myself wishing I'd kept him closer to God because prayer would've been the perfect peace for his soul. But I had to tell him something, so I spoke to him about a place called Heaven.

At my best friend's wedding, when everyone else was lost in celebration, Avery was on his own mission, questioning his very existence. He asked unsuspecting guests about Heaven, announcing that he'd like to go there someday. He told Uncle Nick he wasn't afraid of dying and was fine with it either way.

I heard this again days later while walking back from lunch with my coworker Shereen. As we crossed a busy street, Shereen gripped Avery's arm, warning him to be careful of the 16-wheelers speeding by. "And die?" he asked casually, catching her off guard. "No, no, you won't die," she reassured him. "But you could get hurt really badly." "I'm fine with dying," Avery replied, his steps slowing as he held onto her hand. Shereen tried to understand: "Why would you want to die?" He looked at her calmly. "Because I want to go to Heaven."

Shereen glanced at me, hoping I'd take over, but I shook my head, letting her know she'd have to find her own words.

The hard reality.

As inadequate as I felt, it was time for me to ask myself: why was I so resistant? Was it the permanence of never existing again, the idea of being forgotten? Dying poor? Unaccomplished? Leaving Avery too soon? The anxiety? The funeral? The refrigerator? The box?

Then came the hard reality of my recent heart disease diagnosis — a constant, ticking reminder that my own body might be unreliable. This heart of mine was supposed to carry me through life, to support me as I raised Avery, but it's faltered, and every beat now feels like a question mark. Can I trust it? Can it trust me to take care of it, to carry us both through this life with Avery?

For many people, heart disease isn't just a physical condition but a mental battle against the looming presence of mortality. I've read that survivors often experience heightened anxiety and depression, as each episode reminds them how close they are to the edge. I'm beginning to understand that feeling — this heart, once dependable, now falters under the weight of its own genetic blueprint, and each day is both a gift and a reminder of its limits.

I don't want to be "the mom who died when I was five."

You see it in movies — children bearing a tragic legacy, holding onto memories instead of mothers. Why is it always the moms who become symbols of resilience, leaving children with half-completed memories and stories pieced together by others?

I don't want that for Avery. I want to be here — fully, messily, and honestly.

The pinky promise.

So, after we returned to the office, I knew I had work to do. I joined Avery in his meeting booth where he sat on the floor with his Tim Horton's flatbread pizza, the smell of cheese and tomato sauce filling the air. "Hey…" I began, nudging his shoulder. He looked up, still chewing, his almond eyes focused on me.

"I don't want you to die," I said, taking his face in my hands. "If you die, I'd miss you so much. I'd be sad every day. We wouldn't be able to hug, laugh, or do all the things we love." His big brown eyes welled up, mirroring mine.

His eyes softened as he looked up at me. "We… we can do that?" he whispered. "Yes, we can," I promised. And we sealed it with a pinky promise before he buried himself back into his pizza and show.

My heart wept quietly as I rose to my feet, though I felt a gentle calm nestling between us. And maybe that was the beginning of my legacy to him.

"Mom, why did Grandma die so easily?"

A few weeks later, as we rode home in an Uber, he turned to me, his voice soft with curiosity. "Mom, why did Grandma die so easily?"

I smirked, remembering all she'd fought through. Avery didn't know about those battles, about the strength his grandma had in her, the courage she'd needed just to keep going.

When Whitney Houston died, I cried like I had lost my own mother. That's how intertwined their spirits were in my mind. Whitney reminded me of my mom — their birthdays were just two days apart, and they both struggled with the same demons. When Whitney passed, it felt like a wake-up call, a prelude to the grief I wasn't ready to face for my own mother.

At the time, I was struck by the thought: if Whitney, with all her money and resources, couldn't escape addiction, what does that say about my mom? But I held on to the belief that somehow, my mother was stronger. She didn't have rehab facilities or fancy treatments. She had to battle it out in a third-world country, with nothing but her will and sheer determination. And she did — she got clean.

My mom lived her final three years free of addiction, in a role she hadn't truly known for over 30 years. She got to be a mother again, and my 16-year-old sister, for the first time, got to fully feel what it was like to be a daughter. In that time, I saw the kind of strength Whitney never got to reclaim.

It also scared me. I thought, maybe if I were rich, I could cheat death — order a new lung, drink baby blood, if that's what it took. But money didn't make Whitney immortal. And that made me mortal. And that realization made me feel small. I thought about freezing myself again, but Google told me that it's still not possible. Disney might be dead after all.

I told Avery tales of just how much alike he was with his grandmother. The kindness of his heart, hers. His boisterous voice, hers. His unwavering presence and dedication to helping family and strangers alike. Most definitely also hers. His eyes lit up. He didn't know just how much of her was in him. Even through her darkest years, she never forgot a single birthday of her kids or her ten grandchildren. She remembered all of their names, ages, favourite things, and called each of them every year she could. In her way, she was holding onto us all.

I held my son tightly in that Uber as we processed and made sense of Carla's life. And for the rest of the ride home, snot bubbles blew through our nostrils as we sobbed and laughed and cried.

The third time.

The third time Avery came to me with questions about death was just last night, two months since our last conversation. The timing was, as usual, unpredictable, catching me somewhere between his bedtime story and the beginning of his dreams.

"Mom, who's the oldest?" he asked, his face half-lit by the dim bedside lamp. I blinked, momentarily confused. The oldest where? In school? On the block?

"Who's the oldest… in our family?" he clarified, his tone as serious as if he were discussing some great mystery of the universe. Before I could respond, he followed up, his curiosity expanding in real-time: "Who was the first to die?"

Silence. I didn't have an answer waiting. I had to really think — trace back the lines of family and stories told in fragments. My grandfather, I decided. My mother's dad. He'd died the year I was born, and in his last days, he'd made a point to tell my mom she would have a daughter and to name her Neola. He didn't live to meet me, but his voice was in my name, holding me even from a distance.

I shared this with Avery, taking him further back through our family's history. Some of our elders had made it to their late eighties, I told him, and one even lived to ninety-nine. Avery's eyes lit up, a small hopeful glint as he processed every word, each story becoming part of his own history.

"It would be cool if someone lived until 399," he mused, cuddling his stuffed dinosaur as he considered this legendary age. "Maybe it would be me."

He let out a sigh as he rolled over, clutching his dinosaur tightly, and I could feel a quiet weight settle between us.

"What's wrong?" I asked, not entirely ready for his answer.

"I'm just sad for you, that's all."

His words sank into me, deeper than I expected. I realized he wasn't afraid of dying. He wasn't even truly afraid of death. No — what pained him was the thought of me, the mother he loved, carrying so much loss. He was sad for the ache he sensed in me, the sorrow I'd tried to keep hidden.

In that moment, I saw my six-year-old not as my baby, but as a boy wise beyond his years. He was feeling, in his own quiet way, the sadness I'd buried — the loss of my mother, my grandparents, all the "greats" who were gone.

That night, as I lay in bed, Avery reminded me of those I had lost: Mom, Grandmother, Grandfather, Grandma Mattie, Grandpa Burchell, and the many greats whose faces blurred together in memory. And for the first time, I felt the need to call on them all, to make sure they knew how much I needed them still.

"Please, watch over Avery…" I whispered into the dark, knowing that even if they couldn't answer, they would hear me. "As he watches over me."

Your love is my love.

Coming to terms with death wasn't something I planned to do — and I'm still far from ready. When my mom died earlier this year, My Love Is Your Love was the only song that gave me the strength to mourn her. I sang it to myself during the hardest moments because it was a song that connected us — through her addiction, her love, and even her death. The lyrics, especially this one, resonated deeply:

It felt as though my mom was speaking through the song, telling me not to fear her passing. Both my mother and Whitney seemed to have come to terms with their mortality, ready to have that final conversation with God.

But I'm not ready for that conversation. I'm still holding on, maybe too tightly, to a world where I exist. Heart disease has forced me to confront a new kind of uncertainty, a shadow of questions I'd rather avoid. Doctors tell us to create "legacy projects," ways to leave something lasting behind. Some choose journaling or video messages, capturing pieces of themselves to pass on. But these preparations feel like farewells I'm not ready to give.

Instead, I want to give Avery a legacy that lives in our shared moments. In the here and now.

I haven't yet completed step one — get rich — but now, more than ever, I'm motivated. Not so much with the hope of securing my own future, but to ensure Avery has the life he dreams of. To make sure he knows he's supported no matter where my path leads. So I keep making pinky promises with him, talking about everything from the small wonders of his days to the big questions he asks about life.

I've started thinking about what my own legacy could be for Avery, beyond things left unsaid or written for the end. I want to give him a legacy of presence. Of living in the messy middle. Each moment we spend together, every conversation about life, every question about health and the future — these are the things I hope will shape him, strengthen him, and show him what it means to live without fear, even as I'm still learning to do the same.

Maybe one day, I'll be as brave as Avery, as fearless as he is when he faces these questions that seem impossible to me. Maybe I'll find a way to love fiercely, to hold my sadness gently, and to face the unknown — not with fear, but with love.

But for now, I'll keep building our own Heaven here on Earth, creating a place where love lives on, even if I can't yet promise forever.