The fear that keeps running my life

A few years ago, two people died in the same week.

Not even a week—just days apart.

One was my father’s friend.

The next morning, the newspaper looked like it belonged to him.

Full-page tributes.

Photographs.

People describing how much he shaped them,

how deeply he mattered,

how loudly the world would miss him.

My dad went for his last rites and said he couldn’t even see the body.

There were that many people.

The other person who died that week was a woman from our lane.

A woman who spent her entire life inside her home—

doing everything that keeps a family running,

everything that gets thanked in words but forgotten in real life.

When she died, hardly anyone came.

No column.

No obituary.

Just a quiet handling of her body

and a return to routine by the evening.

That week did something to me I didn’t say out loud.

It dragged up a fear I don’t admit because it feels childish and embarrassing:

I am terrified I will be forgotten.

Not lonely.

Not abandoned.

Forgotten.

Like my life won’t leave any imprint.

Like I’ll slip out of this world quietly

and the world won’t even pause to notice the space where I used to be.

And here’s the part I hate admitting:

When my dad talked about the crowd that came for his friend,

a part of me felt something sharp—

envy,

ache,

shame—

I don’t know what word fits.

Just a realization that I wanted that kind of presence around my absence.

And I hated myself for wanting that.

But it was true.

And once I saw it,

I couldn’t unsee how much of my life has been shaped by this fear—

working harder than needed,

caring too much,

carrying too much,

trying to matter,

trying not to disappear.

I used to think I was driven by purpose.

But maybe I’ve just been trying to build proof that I was here.

In my sessions, when clients talk about their worst fears—

dying alone,

being abandoned,

losing everything—

I hear the same question under all of it:

Will my life matter to anyone? Will I be loved ?

I don’t have a neat ending or a wise line to wrap this up.

The truth is:

This fear still sits inside me.

Some days quietly.

Some days like a punch.

And I’m still learning how to live with the possibility

that the world will forget me because eventually it will.

and I am still finding ways to not disappear from myself.