Dear Diary: Ten People, One Fear

Dear diary,
I am afraid. I know that it will happen. There’s no avoiding it. No matter whom you are or what you do, death will come for you. It’s the bittersweet reality of the world. Whoever we are, no matter what separates us, we will all suffer the same fate. The president will end the same way as a man on death row. There is nothing anybody can do to stop this.

People spend their lives, fighting to find ways to combat death. They waste the better part of their existence trying to find a way to stop the inevitable, ironic much? The fact remains that all living things may not be born equal, but we all die that way. Our lives are just the interim of what can lie beyond.

What does lie beyond death? As a pagan, I believe in no heaven or hell. I believe my soul will join the earth, a tree or an animal. What if this is wrong? What if Heaven or hell really exists? What happens to those who live an honest life, but do not believe in Him? Am I sent to hell for this? Do I deserve eternal damnation for my beliefs?

I spend such a large portion of my life fretting of what may happen to me after I pass away. The truth is I check every appliance in the house before I sleep, and making sure it is unplugged. I worry while I lay awake that I may not see another day. That I may die in my sleep. I worry that I will suffocate on my pillow, die in a house fire or roll out of bed and crack my skull. When I sleep, I have no control, and control is the only thing that keeps me calm about my safety.

Some may argue that I have a long time to think about this, that I have my whole life ahead of me (oh, the irony). I beg to differ. How long will my life last? Can anybody guarantee that I will make it through the night? Can anybody really tell me I’ll make it out of high school? How would they know? Regularly I hear of teens dying, of unexpected tragedies that rock a community. How can I be sure that will not be me? How can I be sure that I am not an accident waiting to happen?

I hear of those who commit suicide and I can’t believe it. As far as any of us really know, we only have one chance in this world. Nobody should pass that up. One good moment is worth a thousand bad, so suicide just takes away the opportunity to feel that happiness again.

The thing that scares me the most about death is not eternal damnation, what I may be missing out on or the unpredictability. It is more trivial than that. I wonder if it will hurt. I wonder if I will die in a tragic accident, in agonising pain. I wonder if I will undergo unbearable treatments of cancer before I finally die. Even more horrifying, is whether after all this, will I welcome death with open arms? Is it possible to feel so much physical pain that life is no longer worth living? It is incomprehensible for somebody like me, who has never really felt serious pain, to understand what it would be like to wish death upon myself to escape.

So finally (although not that finally), I finish this entry. As I finish it, I wonder what will happen to each individual. We will all go in the same way, yet in different circumstances. This is how everyone will all depart, although will they be united again in the afterlife?