Answer

I recently received a text from a dear friend about the passing away of a classmate from high school.  It suddenly came to me that death indeed is one of the things that we should expect to happen especially as we grow older.

I heard one say on TV that there are only two things certain in this world, taxes and death.  Others refute this because there are people who still live in the wild, ergo, no taxes.  Good point.  Some argue that what’s certain are birth and death.  However, there are babies who die in the womb.  Another valid point.  Therefore, only death is certain.

Death is the one topic most people, including myself, dread to talk about.  Even perhaps the most daredevil of us all felt fear of the inevitable at one point in time.  Maybe it comes from the fact that it is human nature to fear the unknown.

Death comes to us in so many ways, imaginable or otherwise.  Some just did not wake up from their sleep, some died from accidents or diseases while some at the hands of another person or worse, their very own.

Untimely is the one word that is almost always used whenever describing a person’s passing away.  But the big question is when is it timely?  Who’s to say when is the best time to go?  A young person who suddenly dies in a car accident is said to have had an untimely death.  But could we not consider that it was the best time for him to go because had he lived a few years more, he would have contracted a dreaded disease that would have killed him slowly and painfully.  We could always think of a number of what-ifs to either console us or aggravate our pains.  But the fact remains that everyone has to go, one way or another.

Do not misconstrue that I do not recognize the pain death brings to a loved one nor do I acquit people who take the life of another.  Heaven knows that I ardently pray that I don’t get tested on this because I would surely be as devastated as anyone would be.

It is just that my point of view on the matter is that everyone, whether he believes in the afterlife or not, will have his way out.  As mentioned, some would have it sweet and swift, some not.  Since all of us are mortal beings, we do not expect to live forever.  Death is part of the grand design, of the grand scale of things in which everything has a purpose.  Death is the period to a novel, the curtain fall to a play.

And I guess the question we should be asking is if we are playing our part well, if we are living our best life.  And my answer scares me.