death is death.

"It kills me sometimes, how people die." 

- Markus Zusak

There is no feeling quite as surreal and sobering as realizing that while you are immersed in happy routine, someone else has descended into the very lowest part of the valley; realizing that your five minutes of monotone is someone else's test.

There is also no feeling quite waiting for news. Waiting for your fears to be confirmed or denied. Waiting to find out if someone has run the last steps of their race and has made it to the finish line. Sometimes it hits suddenly and the only thing your heart feels for awhile after is the impact of the blow, like if a soccer ball hits you in the face and after it's gone you still feel like it's there.

I have never been in the position of having someone die who was very close to me. I have, however, experienced how death in one's broad, general circle of friends can ripple through and take a piece of everyone's heart. It's one of those things that doesn't depend on many factors. Death is death. That's all.

So when death springs up from it's lair to deliver a blow, it brings with it deep-seated fears and anxieties. Sometimes it brings unbridled terror. It comes like a phantom in the night; like a draft of cold air that makes you shiver despite your heavy clothing. And it never, ever leaves you untouched. It doesn't matter what the situation. Death is death.

And God is Life.

Death was defeated when Jesus resurrected, and it will be defeated for eternity when Jesus returns to take his own to eternal felicity. Happy, happy thought.

I don't know what I'd do without hope, because death is awful.

"He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

- Revelation 21:4

 

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