On Death in General:

Right you are dear reader, death is the subject today. I got to thinking about death again, but in the abstract.

We only have one way, as yet, to become alive but there are innumerable ways to end a life. They even come in categories and sub categories. Natural, accident, illness, killing, suicide to name just a few.

I don’t fear death in and of itself but I do fear some of the more nasty ways of getting there. I don’t want to be tortured to death for instance. I would not care to be taken by a long and painful illness. But I do want time to say goodbye to friends and loved ones.

I try to say the things that need to be said just incase our parting is to be the last. I have many regrets but not the last conversation I had with my son. We told each other how very much we loved the other. Something told us to, more then the times we spoke before. So knowing that the same thing may never happen in my life again, I try not to end any conversation with a negative note but on a positive one.

I want to be able to give myself over into death freely in the end. In this I mean that I don’t want anything to hold me back when the time comes. Things undone, people depending on me to see them through, or help them survive the event that led to my death. (Such as a car accident or fire involving other lives.)

With death being so prevalent and unavoidable as the point of the full circle of a life, why so very many different ways to die? We spend so much of our lives avoiding it. Shouldn’t we know better by now? Death is coming to take all who live at some time in the future. But still I puzzle, why so very many different ways to end a life when there is only one way to start it?