People Who Are About to Die Share Their Thoughts and Fears

What happens to us when we die? Nobody can say for sure. Personally, I think it’s just lights out. It can be a horrifying thing to ponder, unless you frame it in the more playful terms of Mark Twain, who is quoted as saying:

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

In other words, I didn’t exist before I was born and that was fine. Why would not existing after death be any worse? It’s a morbidly comforting thought, but tongue-in-cheek philosophizing like this is cold comfort to those who aren’t in a position to think about death abstractly. What about when it’s staring you right in the face?

Here are 10 real, anonymously contributed thoughts from people who know that they’re about to step into that great unknown.

10. What would you do?

I could think about an answer for this for days and still likely come up with nothing.

9. Far too soon

There’s too much you’ve been robbed of when you’re taken before your time.

8. The age gap

Is this truly your only option?

7. Borrowed time

Does the liberation outweigh the terror?

6. Seize an opportunity

This seems sleazy and yet I can’t find a reason to be mad about it.

5. Who to tell?

No one can make that decision for you.

4. What a waste

Is this what others would say about you?

3. In the pit

I wish I could ask this person if they’d been diagnosed with something fatal, because this sounds a lot like the symptoms of depression.

2. Keep to myself

How can you even bring it up?

1. No pity, no party

Why does it have to come with this extra indignity?

Despite the fact that we all have different ideas about what happens when we die, the thing we have in common is that we know just how hard it is to face. Be good to each other.

What are your thoughts on death?

Tell us in the comments.