Running with scissors

This post is about a fear. The kangaroo put it very clearly into one of his posts: I saw, for the first time, how scared I am of dying, and of other people dying, and how this fear has prevented me from doing all sorts of things"

Although I would like to disagree, and pat him on the shoulder and say that fear of death is a feeling we all experience sometimes (or all times), moreover, that being so much in love with life makes you even more scared of parting with it, I know very well that would have been lying to myself and being blind to my own feelings.

Fact is, I am scared of dying. And maybe even more, I am scared of losing. So scared, that the absence of a beloved, when I know he/she is driving or flying or doing anything else that could generate a terrible accident, I feel lame and anxious, degenerating sometimes into a stressed caller and writer, asking the beloved how they feel or whether they are all right.

It wasn't always so. Back in the days where I hadn't experienced the sudden, unfair death of a dear one and the devastating impact it has on the ones who are left behind, I just dreamed away in an "it couldn't happen to ME" feeling-secure-thing. But experiencing a midnight-call and the sole option it leaves you (live will never be the same), makes something break within yourself.

No matter how balanced and introspective you are, no matter how well you can cure yourself by communication and analysis, there are things in life that you cannot find any explanations for. And those things will tear you apart.

We all deal with death as good as we can. Some of us ignore it ("While I'm here, death is not, and when death will be here, I will be gone, so why worry?"), some make fun ("I intend to live forever or die trying"), some experience blank fear and some try to face it ("While the physical death destroys you, the psychological meaning of death might just rescue you").

I perfectly understand fearing death, it's the big unknown that we all have to face.

But there's one thing I will never agree with: fear of life. As ceasing to take risks and to fight for our happiness, just because it might end in disappointment and grieve is even worse than dying after all.

So, my dear kangaroo, thumbs up for your self-awareness and introspection. But don't take your fears as something that was given to you and that is final. For death is just another border to be crossed. And maybe, just maybe, there is something beyond. As there certainly is something beyond our fears - the real life we have all been talking about.