Doors

There is, of course, a door that we shall all, ultimately, step through. Some of us are a lot closer to it, statistically, than others; it is a door through which no person has ever stepped back through with a message of encouragement—or despair.

I speak of the final door.

Death.

I understand completely the desire of people to know what is beyond that door but it is not for us to know.

Sometimes that yearning for post-mortal knowledge is so strong that it leads us to fantasise to the point of belief; to the point of seeing and knowing what it is that lies beyond.

We see ghosts. We visit clairvoyants who tell us, with sincere expressions, that our loved ones are not only here, in this very room, with us but that they bear messages.

The spirits pass us messages of hope, of beauty and peace. They never tell us anything useful.

We have never, for example, received the end to an unfinished symphony; Einstein has never appeared to a spiritualist and revealed the true secrets of the Universe; Uncle Harry has never told his lamenting family where the money is hidden.

We have all kinds of religions believing in all kinds of things.

Those that understand Reincarnation as the truth of all life on Earth know that failure to observe the morals of this life will result in a poor karma in the next life—perhaps returning as something barely alive. A slime mould, perhaps.

Most mainstream religions focus on ‘good’ and ‘evil’.

‘Good’ is rewarded with a sumptuous eternity and ‘bad’ is punished with hell fire. It is usually fire.

Atheists believe that there is nothing. No afterlife. Death is a cessation of existence. The ignition is turned off, the system powers down and goes to nothing. No thought. No ‘I told you so’! That last bit must be the toughest part.

None of us, irrespective of our belief system, seem to fear death unless we have been particularly bad and suspect that the fire pit is our destination.

Death is another state of ‘being’ or a state of non-existence that holds little fear.

The problem, as I see it, is that we all fear the process of transit into that state.

We fear dying.

How nice if we could guarantee a pleasant drifting off into sleep to never awaken. No pain, no suffering, no anguish.

Once you get old there is always a thought that the chest pain you are getting, especially in those small hours, is not wind but something more serious. Is this it? You ask yourself, fear chilling and damping the skin. You are aware that, one night, it will be “that moment”.

We were told, by the doctors, that my Mother was going to die fairly soon and that we should prepare ourselves for that eventuality. We thought we had. But when the moment arrived that there was no pulse we were not prepared; we were not ready.

So it is on a personal level.

You prepare, you know it is imminent but that terror still lurks in the corner of your failing heart.

Some years ago a student asked me a question in response to my statement that a neighbour had just had his 106^th birthday.

“Who,” he asked, “Would possibly want to be 106?”

“Someone who is 105, I expect,” I replied.