Items despawning

I have an illness that causes me to occasionally nod off. This greatly limits the access I have to things I enjoy because who knows when I'll be right in the middle of something and just doze off for a few minutes. I love playing minecraft but, the items you lose despawning is a huge problem. 3 times in my current world I have built up to where I have amazing gear and weapons and I'm building cool things in my world and I doze off for a second. Come to with that little screen 'you haven't been active for a while press any button to get back in the game' and I press the button, I have apparently already died who knows when and all my stuff has already despawned. Could the despawn timer maybe not start until the player hits respawn? Or could like, in real life your stuff not disappear when you walk away from it? I can come across zombie flesh I left floating somewhere days later but I can't be somehow killed by an enderman while looking at the ground not touching the controller and still have my stuff floating there? Like this is the 3rd time now where instead of getting to the building and things I want to do I'm having to literally start over with my stuff. I get that mobs are gonna kill me and if I doze off at an inopportune place I'll probably die. But my stuff shouldn't be able to despawn before I even realize I'm dead.