I Want to Go Out Like the Goodnight Moon Bunny When I Die

I was browsing the death literature the other day, and you know what they’re saying? It’s all about grip strength. It’s inversely correlated with mortality, meaning the stronger your grip, the longer you live. Yeah, you’ve been clenching all the wrong stuff.

This got me thinking about how, when I die, I want it to be in a nice, serene place like that bedroom in Goodnight Moon. I don’t want to die in the kind of place the literature says you’ll probably die, which is a chaotic, syphilis-infested nursing home owned by a private equity firm. I just want to die in peace.

Picture me dying. There I am in the “great green room,” I’m the little bunny lying in bed with the blanket tucked up under my armpits, strapped and ready to go. Wait, you thought I’d be the old lady in the rocking chair? That’s sick. If she dies, who will watch the young rabbit? Who will monitor his screen time? Who will think things in the middle of the damn workday like, “I hope this abomination of a website called Temu isn’t around when Young Rabbit grows up,” while you go click-click-clicking through it anyway, adding to your cart one fifty-piece set after another of tiny rubber ducks, tiny yoga piglets, tiny smiling clouds. Oh, of course, they’re for your grandson to play with in the bath. Sure, sure. But listen, we all know what you’re doing.

Anyway, that’s exactly how I want to die, like that little bunny, just nestled up, a couple of kittens nearby, a bowl full of mush on the nightstand, and every inch of my vasculature coursing with diazepam. Just put me in a warm, watery dream world, baby. I want to wet my pants and like it. I wanna hear old Grammy whisper, “Do you have any regrets?” and then just laugh and laugh and laugh at such a question, deep down, where the shimmering waves of laughter are so small and private they barely amount to a tickle in my throat.

As you picture me dying, remember, this won’t look anything like your passing, according to the death literature. I won’t be lying there slack-jawed in a mess of tubes, with impacted bowels and no memory of the man I once was, a man who was the talk of his whole neighborhood. No, I’ll be calm and stately when I die, just like the bunny.

Can you picture it? Can you see me?

Look me up and down real slow, and as you get to my arms laid out over the blanket, brace yourself, because in my version of this whole thing, those furry nubs do indeed resolve into two glorious bear paws, two big old mitts, bolted on to a little bunny body.

As you drink in the virility of my mighty hands, you may wonder, How old is this guy? You’ll turn to the nurse and ask, and she’ll scream and say, “I’m calling security!”

Then you’ll say, “Fine, do it, but just grant me one last wish. Tell me how old that guy is.”

She’ll say, “He’s 184, why?”

And you’ll say, “Jee-zus. Are you fuckin’ kidding me?”

Then, as the orderlies take you down, you’ll hear, “Yeah, can you believe it? Incredible grip strength.”