The language of these big life moments isn’t quite right: the way we talk about people who have “lost” their lives. The battle against a cruel disease: a war in which there are no real winners. If you die of cancer, does it make you a loser? It implies a lack of strength, or otherwise a kind of carelessness I cannot reckon with. It robs you of your agency in a way that reminds me of “losing” your virginity. (My college put on its own version of The Vagina Monologues, and my submission went something like: “I didn’t lose my virginity; I know exactly where I put it.”)
