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Death is inevitable. Each day, we hear on the news of someone who died at a premature age - on the basketball court, on the football field, in an accident, from a very early cardiac event, and whatnot.
With each of us, we know people who have died while going about the business of living, neither being exceptional human beings nor being bad ones, either. I already have a friend who died from breast cancer, another friend who died from being 325+ pounds, and a few in the college obits within 5 years after graduation from traffic related deaths. While I think the latter were more arrogant than bad people, I was indifferent that they died.
Why I'm bringing this up is the assumption that what happens after death is bad. If one was living in Dust Bowl poverty, I'm sure they didn't aspire to anything other than survival, so they may have met death with more acceptance. I can't be sure. On the other hand, the wealthy person with a view home in Sausalito doesn't want to go. They want to hang on. It's going to happen anyway and the outcome is not changeable.
I DON'T want this to turn into a religious thread. I don't want to hear about the lake of sulfur or fire or streets that shine so brightly. Have you ever been operated upon? They finish surgery at 11 am and at 1 pm, you're waking up from the anesthesia, not remembering a thing. I often wonder if what happens is just that. You basically cease to exist and feel nothing.
People fear death because no one knows what it's like. No one has ever spoken to a dead person, so death is one of the very few things in life that is truly a great mystery. Many people fear the unknown. And I guess a lot of brainwashed people believe that if they've lived a "bad life," they will burn in hell forever.
That's why religious people take comfort in believing in an afterlife, heaven, reuniting with their loved ones and all that. Personally I believe that death will be exactly as it was before you were born: nothing. I don't want to die because I enjoy my life and have a lot of things I want to see and experience before the end. I believe many fear death to some degree and that's normal. I don't obsess over dying and accept that one day it happens to everyone.
That's why religious people take comfort in believing in an afterlife, heaven, reuniting with their loved ones and all that. Personally I believe that death will be exactly as it was before you were born: nothing. I don't want to die because I enjoy my life and have a lot of things I want to see and experience before the end. I believe many fear death to some degree and that's normal. I don't obsess over dying and accept that one day it happens to everyone.
That's why I made the anesthesia analogy.
The other thing is it depends where someone is in their life chronology. If someone has passed the mid-point of their mortality table, it becomes LESS frightening with each passing day. The one story that astounded me the most was that of a single woman, actually once married for a brief time, who was making a meager living as a realtor in rural Northern California. I didn't know her well, but knew her friend. Out of the blue, I asked her friend a few years later what this lady was up to. My friend told me her friend had died of stomach cancer, and rapidly. From stringing together bits of information about her life chronology, it did not seem like that great of a life ... sure, youth in the Bay Area and adulthood in rural NorCal, but, but ... I asked her how her friend handled the diagnosis. She said that "She had seen enough."
I fear death because I was on a ventilator for two weeks and it hurt each time they attempted to pull the tube out (it took several times to get my lungs going again). They ween you off the opiates somewhat before they do this so even though I was somewhat aware (not cognizant, but aware) I couldn't communicate with others how bad it hurt and oddly enough how thirsty I was. .... so, I am afraid that it will hurt really, really bad. I could write a book about that whole experience with death that would freak anyone out....
I am a Christian, so I do have the belief I will live with my Savior for eternity...but that does not mean it won't hurt.
I don't think money matters at all to people when thinking about death. Does it? I'd be surprised if there was a difference because having money or a successful career isn't reflective of a life well lived.
I have my own personal beliefs, but my fear of death has less to do with what may or may not happen after I die, and more to my life ending and what I will leave behind. I was diagnosed with uterine cancer a year ago. Because of having to be referred to an oncologist etc., it was like 3 months before I was operated on. Luckily they got all of the cancer, but those 3 mos. of not knowing if the cancer had spread, facing major surgery, and possibly facing death were the worst 3 mos. of my life. I have 4 children and all I could think about was leaving them and how much I wanted and needed to be here for them. The thought of leaving my children and all the things about my life that I love, even the little things, was overwhelming to me. Of course I also thought about dying itself, being sick, in extreme pain or passing away in an awful way was on my mind as well. I was close to my children, but I am closer now than ever with them after this experience.
Death does not scare me in the slightest. We are born , we live, we die. What terrifies me is suffering terrible pain, indignity or becoming a vegetable. Death however I simply see as the final destination, nothing to be scared of at all. I will be dead and won't know I am dead so why would it bother me ?
The death of the people I love obviously is something which scares me. Because it is so permanent and there is no cure.
1. death=unknown
2. the experience of dying - pain, fear, suffocation, none of it is pleasant.
I have been with many people when they have died. The myth of a peaceful death is just that, very few people I have been with just "drifted off". Most experienced significant pain, hyperventilation, anxiety before they died. That for me is the biggest fear.
I used to not fear death itself because I always believed when you are dead, you're dead, end of story. I hope that is the case. I'm not the least bit interested in immortality in any "form". Unfortunately for me, I had an experience in 1998 that makes me question the "dead is dead" theory. I went to a psychic who did not know me, knew nothing about me and asked me no questions. The first thing she said to me was, "before I talk about you, I have a message for your father, he thinks his wife is all alone but she is not, she is with Mary Francis and is fine". Okay so, my stepmother had died 2 days prior. I had never heard the name Mary Francis before. When I asked my Dad if he knew of a Mary Francis he gave me the strangest look and said that she was my stepmother's cousin and best friend in childhood, who had died at the age of 10. I never really believed in psychics but, this woman told me many things about myself that were to come true as well. To this day, it still bothers me. I don't want to live forever, when I am dead, I'm ready for it to be over. But I still cannot find an explanation for what this woman said to me. As I said, she knew nothing about me, not my name, nothing and, didn't ask me any questions. Still freaks me out. So pain, suffering and the possiblity of an afterlife, none are attractive to me.
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