How Would I Face Death?

We are all going to die. It is an inevitability that most of us, myself included, do not contemplate very often. The inevitable has become the immediate for my friend Gary Devin. In late December doctors found a tumor setting between the two halves of his brain. He is already exhibiting advanced signs of the disease and the average life expectancy is fourteen months for the type of tumor he has. He hugged me the other day. It was the sweetest hug I've ever gotten.

I've never faced death head on. I've always looked at it around the corner. I've lost grandparents, people I've known in passing and friends of friends but no one that would shatter me. That may be why I've never been particularly scared of it and never really questioned death. I'm not one to scream at God demanding why he took someone so early. The sun rises in the east. People die. It just is.

Whatever trepidation I did have vanished when I became a Christian. Would that hold in the face of a terminal diagnosis? I like to think so, but I imagine I'd spend at least a few days under my desk in the fetal position gently rocking while I mumble no over and over again. Why though? I believe I am beyond time. That our souls existed before we entered this plane of existence and will exist after we leave it. So why be scared to walk through a door? Maybe because it is the ultimate unknown and the unknown scares us.

So I do not question the reason or timing of our deaths. I am more interested in how we live our lives in the face of our inevitable demise. I am not going to turn this blog into a live life to the fullest kind of thing though. I've already talked about that idea here.

All I'm saying is not to be scared. Death is only a door.

If you need me I'll be under my desk.