On Death

03 Sep 2009 2 Comments

by Cathy in Philosophical, Reflecting

It’s been quite some time. I’ve never really spoke about it, though the idea and image of death still anchors my heart deep under the ocean very much the same way. Through my uncle I’ve seen the process of dying, death, and its aftermath. I still don’t understand death, and scientific explanations to me are no different than any other belief about death, religious or not.

Birth brings us into this world, we arrive either with warmth, indifference, or regret. As a matter of fact, birth itself is also puzzling. It’s quite amazing to consider that the emergence of a living being could happen. Forget the how, it’s the fact that it’s possible that’s amazing. What happens in between birth and death? There’s so many things that could occur, and its length can vary tremendously. How do you determine the value of a life lived? Or is it just something that we foolishly apply to ourselves and others?

We begin and end in very much the same way, birth and death. We have these concepts of beginnings and endings, but we never really understand them because it is not in our conscious or memory. We have no grasp of what it is like to become a living being from a bunch of particles, we have no grasp of what it’s like to be born, and neither do we have any idea what death feels like until you’re there and you’ll never have the chance to express it.

Death, is a dead end, a step into the unknown, and the less we accept what death is, the more terrified we are of it. Are we afraid of how we die or of death itself? Everyone is different in how they die, but death itself is universal to living mortal beings. If that’s the case, then what is this pang you feel in the presence of another’s death?

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