Get a Grip

This post is probably going to end up sounding more like a therapy session than anything else, so if you're not in the mood for a vent, you don't have to bother reading. I've been dealing with a lot of fear lately (particularly in the past few days), and I think this might be a good way to vent some of my inner frustrations.
This morning, I attended a funeral. An older cousin on Mike's father's side died suddenly of a heart attack Sunday night. He went to bed that evening and never woke up. He was only 74, very active, and by all accounts in very good health. I didn't know him well, but he always seemed like such a wonderful man. His sudden passing shocked us. Today we sat in the church and I just watched his five grown children and their kids and I ached for the pain they're feeling. I also found myself wondering what it would feel like to be in their shoes, and wondered if I could bear it.
Whenever a family member, friend, friend of a friend -- or even someone I hear about on the news -- passes away, it raises my fear level about losing someone I love. When the death is sudden or unexpected, my fear level skyrockets.
I've never been a huge worrier, but for some reason in the past few years, I've worried more than ever. I think it really began about four-and-a-half years ago, when Mike was recovering from his first bone-marrow transplant. I don't know what exactly triggered it, but I began getting all kinds of anxiety about my own health. I was convinced something bad could strike me at any moment. For the first time, I really felt like I wasn't invincible. Of course, this kind of stress can lead to physical symptoms, so I would get tightness in my chest and my heart would race. What I later on realized were anxiety attacks, I thought for sure at the time that they were heart-related incidences. These instances didn't last long, and I eventually worked through them, but my fear and anxiety about Mike was just beginning.
In the days leading up to my pregnancy test following our first IVF cycle, I began having terrible anxiety about Mike's health. His cancer was in remission at the time, but I was suddenly filled with horrible fear and dread about his cancer coming back. These feeling continued for weeks after our failed cycle, and within a month Mike did have a cancer recurrence.
My fear over Mike's health has come and gone at various degrees over the past few years. I give myself a break on that, acknowledging that this is part of having your life touched by cancer. Once a cancer patient, always a cancer patient (from a psychological standpoint at least). You always have to be "on guard" and the very real possibility of relapse is always in the back of your mind. I accept that as part of my life now.
I am also now in a place where I really believe Mike's cancer is behind him. I believe that for a number of reasons. I still have my moments of fear, and my heart rate still speeds up a bit each time I think I see a spot on his skin, but I can usually reason through the episode and return to my peaceful state of mind.
More recently, I have been going through fear of losing other family members -- my parents, brother, grandparents, etc. Usually, the fear of loss centers around my maternal grandparents who are 89 and 87. They are two of my favorite people on the earth, and we are very close. They still live in the same house they raised my mom and uncle in, and they are still independent. They've slowed down considerably, and have minor health issues here and there, but are in remarkable shape for their ages. Mike often reminds me that most people their age (if they're still alive, to paraphrase Casey Stengel) are in nursing homes or need constant care. They are a true blessing in my life and I'm so fortunate to have them at my age. But recently I find my mind drifting to scary places, where I imagine getting "the call" that something terrible has happened. These thoughts take my mind captive and just won't let go.
I've even started getting panicked when I call my mom and can't reach her (she's allowed to have a life -- go shopping, garden in the yard, meet a friend for lunch). Where did this all come from?
I think it's the suddenness factor that gets me going, which brings me back to the funeral we went to earlier today. Total shock. Nobody in my family has any major illness or is failing in any way, but that is little consolation to me. You hear about it every day -- perfectly healthy people are going about their business and are stricken down. Nobody saw it coming. No chance to say goodbye. No last "I love you's." Just shock.
Several times, Mike and I have pondered which would be a better way to go -- illness or declining health over a period of time, where loved ones can say what they need to say and unfinished business can be wrapped up, or to be taken suddenly, without pain or suffering and without having to watch someone waste away. Both have their pros and cons (depending on if you're the departed or the ones left behind), but we both agreed in the end that neither is particularly desirable. I don't ever want to be blind-sided by a loss, but death is death. Loss is loss. There's little comforting about the way it happens.
I do need to get a grip. I'm getting to the point where every time the phone rings I have a second where I wonder if it's bad news. When I'm drifting off to sleep at night, I'm thinking to myself, "If the phone were to ring right now, it could only be bad news." Not a very relaxing way to wind up your day.
I'm mad at myself for wasting so much energy on worry, instead of enjoying the fact that I have a cancer-free husband, healthy parents and a healthy sibling, and two active and healthy grandparents. I should enjoy and cherish every moment I have with all of them, and yet my mind keeps focusing on what could happen -- a disease they could get, or an accident they could have. Is that any way to live? I have so much to be happy about, so why am I letting myself become crippled by fear?
Feel free to share any advice, or words of wisdom, or just pray for me that I don't let my worry consume me.
I will close with a verse from the book of Matthew, and hope that I can take its advice for myself:

"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."