I have just returned from the hospital visiting one of my old friends. Mid-sixties, like me. In the week since I last saw him he has regressed tremendously. Last week it was the usual fun or light conversation between us. "Just here for some tests but should be home by the weekend."
This is the weekend now and he seems worse than ever. Could barely speak to me. We communicated though. I suggested he ate something but he didn't want. Managed to persuade him to have some soup. The morphine is slowing him down but it is at least killing the pain. The breathing is noisily empty and resounding. He is dying I said to myself. But then, we all are. Aren't we?
So my mind stopped playing tricks on me. Why do we fear Death? Is it perhaps because we are never really prepared for it? Or perhaps because we are very attached to our life? Let's face it, we are probably all attached to this life and don't really want to lose it because to some extent we don't really know what awaits us on the other side. Oh, I am presuming you believe there is something on the other side, right?So why do we fret? Are we tied to our possessions and worry who'll get them after we're gone? Or perhaps what will happen to all the lovely collections we cared for? Or the investments we made to live a happy future? How would all this effect your thoughts on your own death?
I asked myself: How do you imagine your own death to be? And I drew a blank. I hoped it would come fast, without too much pain for me or for my family. That they would not suffer because of my sudden loeaving. I would - in typical fashion - exspect that all my "to do" lists would somehow be up-to-date and that everything unfinished could be finalised quickly and easily by my children. It's a trait I inherited from my parents but especially from father. He was organised even to after his demise.
Would I leave through an accident? At home in my room. Or in a hospital bed as my friend now was. Time would tell. This blog might even still be doing the rounds when my candle gets snuffed. Yet I feel I do not really fear the passing on. My bags are ready though, to be honest, I am in no hurry to leave, as the jovial and influential Pope John XXIII had said in the early Sixties. I trust in my Maker and know that He knows more than I when it is time for me to go. And I hope it will be Home. Because what is death? It is like a ship that leaves the harbour and sails to the horizon, getting smaller and smaller in our sight. But as she disappears from our sight on the horizon, others are seeing her coming and are saying "Here she comes!"
