Who Cares How We Die?

In discussing human tragedy recently, a friend I was having coffee with felt strongly that how we die determines to what degree our lives can be held up to scrutiny by those we have left behind.  But, I wasn’t buying it.  I had to ask, does it really matter how we die?  Does it matter who or what is to blame?

OK let’s go through the steps.  Here we are alive one day and then for whatever reason we die.  Maybe we are ill, maybe we have an accident, maybe we are offed, maybe we off ourselves?

Let us just imagine, for a moment, that now we are dead and reflecting on the manner in which we died. If we were, by social standards, unfairly terminated, would we remove ourselves from the gentle embrace of Elysium, step out of the cosmic flow and go back to make a complaint?  Would we haunt our relatives? Where is the complaint department?

It is believed in some circles, that in the case of war, a pandemic, man-made catastrophe or natural disaster, whenever there is a huge exodus from the planet, the individuals involved have chosen to leave at that time.  For them, it is the planned exit point and not a tragedy in the least.  They are done doing what they came to do, at peace with their lives, and are received with love and appreciation on the other side.

I pondered, would I rather die of disease, or go out in a blaze of glory?  For me the answer was easy, I  want the exciting story.  I want my exit to be dramatically facilitated so my daughters have good material for future cocktail parties.

Call me cold-hearted, but the end result is the same.  When we are dead, who cares how we got there?

Now to the point, what does matter?

I say, how we live now.  

Not looking over our shoulders at past losses, many of which happened to others, were completely out of our control or occurred before we were born; or waiting for something good to happen from a source outside of ourselves.  

Life is short, but what we do here resonates infinitely.  That is why I believe we need to live our pre-death experience consciously and to its fullest.

Who cares how we die.  We are all going to die.  Hopefully with a good story attached. But let us turn our attention now on how we live, how we love and what we choose to leave behind.

And by the way, how other people choose or have chosen to exit is none of our business; and not our story to hijack as an excuse for not living our lives to the fullest now and making a difference.

As my father Mladin always used to say “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”