How old were you your first time?

I was eight. Or maybe nine.

It was sometime after the funeral of poor Old Mr. So and So, lived a goodly life, but never ironed his orange and teal sports coat on Sundays. Nice guy, allegedly, although his appearance was a little rough around the edges. He was one of those middle-of-the-church, all the way on the left side attendees, blending in so well every week, that after a while you forget they’re there. One week you’re laughing with your friends over his unkempt hair and the way his tie clashes with both his jacket and his slacks, and the next week the loud seventies patterns die out and blend with the other invisible non-essentials associated with the Sunday service.

Sure, the filament surrounding the fuses in the attic are important and the little rubber stoppers in all the electric outlets do a great job, but just like Mr. Wrinklecoat, you don’t think about them until one is missing and little Timmy sticks two fingers, wet from the sacramental Welch’s into the hole in the wall. “Yes,” you think, as the paramedics load the ambulance with Timmy, his dye job mother, mustachioed father and two or three earnest deaconettes, “something is definitely missing.”

The same thing happened with the unexplained absence of clashing flannel from across the aisle. My eight or maybe nine year old self wasn’t privy to the information regarding those who were passing on, breaking hips, or spending time with their life partners in Anaheim. For all I knew his mysterious disappearance was related to his spending quality time with his family upstate. A few weeks came and went, and with them the change from late summer to fall.

Seasonal changes were marked by a change in wardrobe. For a child of the nineties, impending winter meant embarrassingly functional leg warmers and pullover Starter jackets. For Mr. Left and Up Three Rows, cold weather meant corduroy suits. In three colors. As the leaves came out with flamboyant displays of color and dance moves usually saved for retro discothèques, I was worrying myself sick towards the back of the rows of pews. My abstractly patterned sweater was causing my side ponytail to be incredibly static-ey. Looking for confirmation that someone looked more ridiculous than me, I kept glancing to the left. “Yes,” I thought, trying yet again to flatten my bangs, which were trying to meet the ceiling, “something is definitely missing.”

“Mom?” I asked, when we were invited to greet those around us, “Where’s that guy been? Y’know: the one with the ugly coats?” “He died months ago,” she informed with a tone that suggested this was something I should have somehow came to know, without having to be told. She scooted off to complete her handshaking rounds within the allotted time, leaving me to comprehend death in its entirety on the hard, fart-smelling cushion.

How could something as talked about and worried over be as simple as a missing outfit on Sunday morning? How could it be possible that one week a person can be halfheartedly singing “Our God Reigns” and grimacing when that one leggy-blond goes for the high soprano on the last refrain, and then be pushing up daisies the next week? I realized that if dying could be done as spontaneously as buying an orange soda instead of a caffeine-free Pepsi, then any of us could die at any moment. Somewhere between the shake hands and repeat this phrase routine and the accidental accidentals the organist added in during the “Now is the time to return to your stations and listen!” song, I grasped mortality for the first time. Armed with the scariest information the church had given me since the Junior High Sunday School teacher attempted Revelations: The Musical, I did what anyone does while in a church service and something makes them uncomfortable: I faked a throat tickle and excused myself to the water fountain.

In the privacy of the creaking gymnasium, I sat on the floor and considered the relatively short lifespan of humans, and how unimpressive death is, and then if the culmination of our entire existence can happen like a puff of breath on an early morning in October, then how our lives themselves must be unimpressive: merely steam on the wind. I considered the death of those I loved and those that loved me. And then, for the first time in my life, I let my mind venture into the lurking shadows on the edge of every child’s thoughts and considered my own mortality.

The knowledge that everything could just stop in my realm of existence at any given moment left me reeling. Never before had I left insignificant within the universe as a whole. I felt small and dizzy and a little sick. I sat on the floor, lost in my thoughts, but not really thinking for a few very long moments.

Shocked back to the present by the organ’s announcement of another impending hymn, I sucked in a few calming breaths, stood up and leaned over the water fountain for some refreshment. As the water tickled my lips, I realized that life is not insignificant. Those water molecules were thousands of times smaller than me, yet there presence on Earth is the one factor that sustains all life here. Existence is only cursory if you allow it to be. Don’t let your life pass by with a hushed fizzle. Instead, make it loud. Make it memorable. Don’t let an electrocution or bad hair day be the impetus for someone to realize you’re missing. Don’t grimace at the high soprano: don your powdered wig and one-up her with the descante. Don’t live spontaneously. Live as if it’s what you were born to do!