Emily McCombs

...[B]eing among the dead rightsizes my problems, makes me feel small like staring at the ocean. After all, we are all being carried along toward the same inevitable fate as the men and women whose headstones I pass on my daily strolls. The best we can hope for is that someday someone will stop to calculate our ages and wonder about our lives after we’re gone.

My son is particularly anxious about death. He’s generally sensitive — he’s yet to make it through a full movie because anytime there’s a minor conflict he gets too upset and we have to turn it off. We left Zootopia in the theater when the big animals were being too “mean” to the rabbit. We left a screening of Toy Story in the park because he got too anxious when Woody and Buzz got left at the gas station. (We didn’t make it to the genuinely terrifying broken toy hybrids.)

This may sound weird, but I want my own Hillary Clinton doll. I want to have her give State of the Unions on what’s in my fridge. I want to dress her up in tiny pantsuits. (I’ll place them over the one she’s already wearing.)