On my fourth Bumble date with the man in the zoom rectangle on my monitor, I slip and mention that I'm obsessed with death. Not exactly the light banter I intended, so I giggle coyly. I'm not sure a woman past sixty can achieve coyness, but I hope he thinks I'm joking. I've learned words like death or suicide can silence a room, and such topics while dating should probably be sandwiched between the first kiss and the STD testing.

I look at my screen and my cheeks are flushed, but he's smiling. He says, "I know about your obsession. I read your stories online. Someone always dies."

I'm flattered and defensive. Mr. Bumble read my work! But really. "Not every story," I say and mentally flip through the card catalog of my online work. I'm having trouble recalling what's on the internet when he interrupts. "Well, not every story. There's one where the character doesn't die but gets maimed." Busted.

I suppose my obsession began in the hallowed halls of Boston College, where the faculty drummed into our eighteen-year-old heads a patient trifecta to be avoided at all costs. Shock, coma, death. Just hearing those words brought on the urgency to pee. Would I be able to intervene before the dreaded flatline? After I graduated, I specialized in critical care nursing, and if you rolled into my unit, my job was to keep you alive unless your status changed to a DNR.

Do Not Resuscitate. Now that I'm firmly in middle-age (yes, I plan to live to 126), I've been considering under what circumstances my proverbial plug should be pulled. For those interested, there's not actually any plug that gets pulled. We turn the machines off but leave them plugged in. For a person who's witnessed her share of the multitude of ways one can take their last breath, there are plenty of details I'd like to control.

From the time I was a little girl, I wanted to control people, places, and things—the Vietnam war, whether we got a family dog, the boys pummeling snowballs at me on my walk home from St. Robert's. Over the years, I've whittled away most of my  control illusions. I'd just like to have agency over my own life. And death.

Out of the many public figures who've recently died, Thich Nhat Hanh's passing struck a bell. I first heard of the Buddhist master in 1987 while living in Tucson. A friend invited me to watch videos of his talks playing at a massive Pepto-Bismol-colored monastery of Benedictine nuns.  In a darkened basement with a few other laypeople and a couple of nuns dressed in their habits, we sat on metal folding chairs and though I don't remember the Vietnamese monk's words, I do remember the gentle tone of his voice—comforting and capacious. For forty years, I've intermittently read Thay's work wanting to emulate his kindness and learn how to greet difficult emotions and fears like they are friends. This is a quote from his book, No Death, No Fear.

 This body is not me; I am not caught in this body, I am life without boundaries, I have never been born, and I have never died. Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies all manifest from the basis of consciousness. Since beginningless time I have always been free. Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out. Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek. So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye. Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before. We shall always be meeting again at the true source, always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

I've come to believe that even if one is conscious at the very end of their life, they aren't experiencing the captivity of their bodies. I swim, lift weights, eat green leafy vegetables—I want my body to serve me well until my final days. Eventually, my body will become an impediment. Then I will leave. But how and to where?

Shortly after Thich Nhat Hahn's death, I saw a local art exhibition titled "Remote Possibilities." On a large LED screen, thousands of pinpoints of light endlessly twinkled, sparkled, and exploded on a black background. This mesmerizing experience gave me the sensation of hurtling through a galaxy, and I slipped into a meditative state—peaceful and fearlessly flying. Maybe this is what it will be like when I transition out of this world and into the next.

With the plan of living to 126, I've got several more years to prepare for my death. Besides writing my eulogy and creating the Grateful Dead song list to be played at my services, perhaps I'll memorize Thich Nhat Hahn's words, so smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye, to chant in those final moments. Or maybe I'll just listen for the gentle sound of his voice.