I come from death.

Where do you come from?

The Mount Riboudet in Rouen at Spring by Claude Monet, 1872

I woke up on Monday. Then I woke up on Tuesday. And again on Wednesday. I woke up on Thursday as well, and I woke up today, on Friday. It is now starting to occur to me that maybe, maybe what I’m looking to say is that I woke up. Look at the numbers: it is estimated that between 25,000 and 45,000 people worldwide die in their sleep every day, with some sources suggesting as many as 1 in 8 deaths occur this way. I didn’t make that up. Google did.

When I say I wake up, I don’t mean it in a grateful, somewhat nauseating every-day-you-wake-up-you-are-given-another-chance-to-change-your-life manner. I simply make an observation. Perhaps I’m a little surprised to not once (yet) be the one in the 1 in 8 deaths that occur during sleep. I must be really, really lucky. I think I am. Overall.

I am filling out an employment application to work as a bookseller at my favourite bookstore in Pasadena. It’s my new dream job. In the application, they ask: On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being the luckiest, how lucky do you consider yourself to be in life and why? I think I’m an eight. Eight for the 1 in 8 deaths that occur during sleep. Eight for the effort, and the remaining two are for the things I cannot control. One is illness. The other is death. This is how I would answer Vroman’s question if they gave me the space in the form to write eight hundred words.

A year ago, I was lucky to find Peter Spear’s podcast, That Business of Meaning. The first question he asks each guest is: “Where do you come from?” He makes a point to note two things: first, that he borrowed this question from a friend who helps people tell their stories, and second, that the guest can answer however they choose.

As someone who loves questions, I immediately fell in love with this one because it’s unsettling. At first, you want to respond geographically: a country, a city, a town. But you also know geography isn’t the answer expected of you. It’s like a deceptively simple question on a test, so easy, so obvious, that you start second-guessing yourself. You begin wondering: did they really include such a straightforward question, or is it a trick? The question becomes a riddle, and suddenly, you find yourself more preoccupied with the question itself than with finding an answer. You start questioning the question.

I envy Peter’s guests for being able to find an answer immediately. I’ve been thinking about this question ever since I came across the podcast. Two months later, I finally have mine. I come from death.

I don’t say this in a morose way. But I also don’t say it in a not morose way. I say it because, while others come from the beginning and move forward, I come from the end and move backward.

I was born in a modern-day cemetery: a hospital. The day I was born, my eyes were closed for several days. To this day, I don’t know what it was I didn’t want to see. I probably kept my mouth shut when I wasn’t feeding and held my breath when the smells around me were unpleasant. Like rubbing alcohol. My father said I was going to be lucky. I heard him with my ears, the only part of me I couldn’t close. That same day, I was handed two shovels. Not the colorful, flimsy plastic kind you use to build sandcastles by the sea. Real shovels. A shovel to bury. A shovel to dig. And soon enough, I had to use both.

My father was right. I was lucky to have been handed the shovels; otherwise, I would have had to bury and dig with my bare hands. It would have taken at least double the time and effort, given the hands I inherited from him. On a regular day, I have the hands of a five-year-old girl. And on the days when I paint my nails, I have the hands of a five-year-old girl who snuck into her mother’s dresser and found nail polish. I had to use the shovels sooner than I expected. I had to use the shovels sooner than I expected. Other than my parents, I buried questions and dug up answers.

This question (Where do you come from?) is one I borrowed from Peter, which makes us a line of thieves. So it’s only fair to ask: Why steal a question when you could steal an answer? The answer is simple: because you can’t steal an answer without getting stuck with the question anyway. The answer, any answer, is like a fetus in the womb. If you want it, you have to take its mother with it.

Three things, then: I wake up. I am lucky. I come from death. Maybe it is morose, maybe it is not. It is also blissful. Because I come from the end and move backward, living is like rereading a favourite book. The first time is for the plot; the second, to savour.

Note. This essay was meant to be a letter, the first edition of a snail mail club where each envelope contained three papers: a question, my answer, and a blank page for the destinataire to write their own answer. The project never saw the light because obviously I spent two months looking for fine paper.

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Accord mets-vin:

My husband, Elias Kammoun, chooses a song each week to accompany the essay. We both feel that the art of listening to music the way we read or watch a film is becoming a lost art; music is usually the backdrop to something else, never the thing itself. This is an invitation to give it the same courtesy. Play the music, sit down, and just listen for the length of one song. (Find and follow the playlist on Spotify here.)

Thank you for reading, and listening. Do hit the ❤️ if you enjoyed this essay :)