Being alive always struck me as a kind of double-edged sword.
To be afraid of the unknown, I suppose, is natural.
I get it, that people don’t like to come up against the unexpected.
This world, with its surprises is all I understand, all I know.
Whether those surprises are pleasant or unpleasant I know they’ll occur.
So far I’ve survived all the unexpecteds I’ve experienced.
Maybe I don’t know much of the world, perhaps I don’t understand it well.
But it’s still there for me to experience, if I choose.
I have the opportunity to do so every day should I accept the challenge.
What I fear most is that everything I do know, I eventually won’t.
And everything I could know will suddenly no longer be available to me.
I won’t be able to open a door or turn a corner and discover something new about being alive.
My greatest fear is that death will strip me of everything I’ve ever learned.
It’s taken me all the years I’ve been alive to figure out what little I do know.
And it’s encouraging and comforting to know those things.
I accept that in dying I will experience something I know nothing about.
That’s a given, the end of life, and I’ve always enjoyed a good mystery.
But to suddenly be stripped of everything that’s familiar, that is a grave concern.
Being alive cuts two ways.
You have all those chances to experience things and to learn.
But you realize that finally all you’ve experienced and learned will be lost.
Lanning Lee 