
So I found out on Twitter that I died in 1999. I really thought I’d know this without Twitter or Goodreads, but apparently not. I went over to Goodreads and there it was:

I really think someone should have told me. I mean, I’ve always known I’m not normal, but I didn’t know I was paranormal. I’ve been tooling along, acting like I was a live author, not a dead one.
Though it does explain why I wake up every morning feeling like death warmed over.
But seriously. Fifteen years of deadlines that I didn’t have to meet.
And think about the haunting possibilities that I missed. I could have been featured on ghost tours.
Instead of just releasing books, they could have been missing/unfinished manuscripts.
I could have billed myself as “Dead Author Writing.”
I have to say, though, if I died fifteen years ago, the After Life looks and feels a lot like Real Life. For instance, I’m still aging. I still get tired. I’m still gaining weight, though I don’t care as much, because hey, I’m apparently dead. And there are some bodily functions I was seriously hoping to leave behind when I passed on.
I like that I can still taste food and my cravings apparently passed over with me.
Can’t pass through solid objects, so that’s a bummer.
It’s kind of sad that I only “lived” for one year, though I managed to do a lot in that year, including having kids before I was born. (Just joking. I set that date to try to head off identity theft.)
But I didn’t get:
1) Flowers
2) a Eulogy
3) and I have no idea where I’m buried.
That feels like it’s need-to-know, too. I hope it’s not one of those crypts in New Orleans. Those things can get crowded. I may be dead, but I’m still a hermit at moldering heart.
At first, after coming to grips with the fact that I’m apparently dead, I wondered what my family would say in a eulogy, but now I’m not so sure I want to know that. Normally, when people are gone, they are gone, but I managed to not go and possibly mess up one or six hundred times in the not going. It could go either way, particularly if I keep not going. They might all be wondering why I don’t just go toward the light already.
So that got me to wondering why I didn’t? But that’s probably the easiest question to answer. Didn’t see it. Oops. I was probably reading. Or writing. Clearly not paying attention. So instead of the dearly departed, I’m the dearly didn’t depart. Or perhaps just the “didn’t depart.”
And here’s another thing. Lately, because I thought I was getting older, when people ask me how I am, I respond with, “Not dead.” So basically I’ve been misleading people about my status for years. It’s embarrassing. And now what do I say now that I am dead? I’m not “fine,” because hello, dead. And, I’m not “not dead.”
So, what do you think? What should I say when people ask how I am? What would you do if you suddenly found out you’d died fifteen years ago and no one told you? You know I love comments so much that I pick a favorite to receive my monthly AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value). Recipient is announced the first blog post of the new month.
Perilously yours,
Pauline
P.S. In an ironic twist, in my book The Last Enemy, Dani is presumed dead but still alive (instead of presumed alive, but dead like me). Even better, the book is FREE.