Showing posts with label Dying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dying. Show all posts

Sunday, April 10, 2022

Fear of Death

When I was young, the fear of death bothered me a great deal.  I remember taking my first business course at West Valley Junior College, when classes were still being held on the former campus of Campbell Junior High School, before it moved to a permanent campus in Saratoga, California.  During a break, I stood outside the classroom drinking vending machine coffee.  I was filled with horror and dread at the knowledge that I would someday die, that the world would go on without me.  Traffic would still fill the streets, people would still go to work, students would still attend classes but I wouldn’t be there.  

As the years passed, the dread and horror lessened and now, in old age, they have ceased completely.  So many friends and family members have preceded me in death that I feel somewhat guilty at having survived them.  Why am I still here?  Am I being punished?

A subject that interests me greatly is the near death experience, a common phenomenon among those who have flatlined but still survived.  A common characteristic is that the experiencers have felt enveloped in a bright light and immersed in feelings of great love, i.e., that they feel loved beyond all prior experience.  They meet loved ones who died before, and are even reunited with deceased pets like dogs and cats.  Most do not want to come back but are told they have no choice, that their time is not yet.  

An original researcher into the phenomenon is Raymond Moody, whose book “Life After Life” introduced the subject to millions.  Moody reported that after studying thousands of NDEs since, he finally just accepted it for what it seems, that there is an afterlife and that we survive physical death.

I hope so.  I would like to rejoin departed friends, family and especially my dogs, in another dimension, in a better world than this.  Is it true?  Hope costs nothing and I will find out in not too many more years.  


Thursday, December 09, 2021

Going Home

For the past ten years or so I have had the habit of murmuring to myself  “I want to go home.”  It took me awhile to realize what this means.  It is a death wish.  Home does not refer to my earthly abode but my instinct of another home in whatever comes next.  I learned that this wish is often expressed by senior citizens like myself.  

I want to go home.  

Thursday, November 18, 2021

Life, Death and the Hereafter

On Life and Death

I am not a member of any religion but I do believe in a higher power.  Some call it simply the universe, the source, or God.  I’m not a fan of this life on Earth, because of the existence of death.  I’m now 77 years of age and I have seen so many of my friends and relatives die.   One day they’re here and the next day they’re not.  Where did they go?  Did they have immortal souls or is that just a happy myth?  Absence a body, can they still have memories, retain their personalities, still think?  Do they know they’re dead?

No one can be sure but studies of the near death experience give us hope that these things are true.  Better yet, these experiences indicate dogs and cats and other animals also make it into the heavenly realm.  I hope so, I sure want to see all of my dogs and cats again.



Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Older Than Dirt

Today is my birthday.  I am 77 years old, the same age my father was when he died in 1991.

I have outlived my two brothers, Ted and Dennis.  Ted died at 76 in 2019 and Dennis died at 72 in 2020.  

To outlive my father I need to survive until March 9, 2022, when I will be one day older than he was when he passed.  I figured this out using an Excel spreadsheet.

I certainly do not fear death.  However, my health is excellent for my age and I suspect I am fated to suffer this mortal coil until my eighties.