So, it's not just me. This is why my loved ones are all under strict orders to outlive me. Even so, we try on grief in the dark dressing room of the mind, then act it out on that private stage, and maybe these little rehearsals help, but maybe they're what causes our blood pressure to spike - to be that thing that might just take us first. We don't want to watch all those ahead of us in line disappear, we think about elbowing our way to the head of the line, but no. That is selfish and we're not that. So we wait our turn, and hope no one we know cuts ahead of us in line.

I think John Donne knew this feeling well:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.