Questions on Death

         

How do you know when your time is up?

When do the fates decide to stop turning the wheel? Are we all predestined through an act of God that determines when are last day is, our last hour our last minute, the last second or the last breath of air? Is it programmed in our genes from the time of conception? Sort of a biological clock, for a lack of a better term that simply begins a random countdown from the moment we are conceived. Some folks have a longer clock some have a shorter one simple as that. Or is it simply luck. Some are lucky to live a long life some are unlucky to live a short one. Does it matter how often one goes to church, or how often one prays? Does confessing your sins on a regular basis earn you any bonus points? What about the old saying…..how’s it go? Do unto others, as you would want done onto you, or something like that. Does that mean then that nice guys truly do finish last? Or is that a joke too, and like Billy Joel said “only the good die young”.

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately, and I have noticed that most anything I have written in the last month revolves around some sort of death or ending. It’s not a morbid curiosity lurking deep inside. I lost a good friend three weeks ago to heart attack. He was forty-four. In the last two years I’ve lost another close friend and a cousin to prostate cancer. Last June an old friend I used to play football with in high school, put a pistol in his mouth, because he couldn’t handle being so far in debt, from a failed restaurant. Sometimes that is the breaks, I guess…but losing friends sucks.

I wish I knew what happened to them after they passed. Do they instantly see a light and go to heaven, or do the demons from down below come take them? Do they wander on a long dark journey as a lost soul looking for salvation? Or can it be possible that there soul lives on in another, resurrected by a new birth. Can they see me right now, are they here?

To many damn questions, I don’t know if anyone will ever know the answer until their own time comes. Maybe it is the greatest question of all, because you have to wait your entire life for the answer.

Andy, Justin, Dave, Kurt…in your own ways you guys all left a mark on my life. I hope to see you all one day. Grab a beer, shoot the shit, talk some football, talk about our family…I miss you guys.

So what is the answer?