Death captivates me. As a child, I never feared dying simply because it never occurred to me that people died before they got very old. Growing up, I came to realize this was not the case, as I saw instances of death in many different forms. My uncle Levi died of a heart disease when I was just four years old, and he was not an old man. My house cats died (pretty horrifically) and they were not old cats. Some of my friendships died as a result of hurt feelings, rather than time killing them. I saw news stories of hundreds or thousands of people dying at the hands of tragedies and accidents, and they were not old. Most recently, my very dear cousin Karl died, and he was most certainly not old yet.

Time does not correlate to death. Time is simply a way we make sense of our reality and the progression of events it seems to carry out. Our bodies will eventually die as a result of time, but they can die long before that expiration date due to an unlimited number of reasons.

But the important part is not our physical bodies dying. Yes, that means that we are no longer members of this earth. But our bodies were never anything more than a tool. Mortality itself is very ambiguous, and we must apply it to our bodies and not our beings.

This is not a religious concept or one that requires you to believe in an afterlife, or a God, or Gods, or anything of that nature. This has to do with our impact and the pure existence of our spirit. When someone dies, they are usually remembered by their family members, friends, acquaintances, coworkers - anyone they may have come into contact with. Even someone who may have lived in complete isolation their entire life will be remembered in some way, whether it is by the house that they built that now stands empty, or a small act they performed which affected much greater things indirectly. Every single person has some sort of impact on the physical level, and, most of the time, on the spiritual level in their connections to other people. The legacy left behind by the person's spirit on the hearts and minds of others and on the world around us is what shows that we do not die when our bodies die.

So why do we fear death? I believe it is because we fear the unknown more than anything else. We will never truly know what happens to our spirits when we die until we die. What we do know is that while we are in this life, we can do everything we can to leave our mark on the world and those around us. We should do this not for the sake of being remembered and living on through this, but for the sake of bettering the lives of everyone else who still walks the ground we once did. Usefulness is what we must embrace to fight mortality.

I'm going to also add a poem I wrote this week after the death of my cousin Karl. The idea behind it is to describe an abstraction such as mortality using only concrete examples. I did so using examples that show some of the impacts that the death of someone can have on those around them.

After

The body laying limp on the floor

The darkness that comes after the final shot

The senselessness that accompanies it

The tightness in the others’ chests

The visible remains

The wide open mouths of those in disbelief at the news

The touch of their hands that carries heat from one side alone

The tears of they that are shared by others but not by you

The dust left on the fingers of those saying goodbye

The straightness of stature held by those who honor you

The small whimpers barely heard from those in the crowd

The hugs of solidarity shared between those present

The silence upheld by those who wish you were there to break it

The dampness of the pillows that support the heads of those closest to you

The blood that drips from the knuckles of your brother

The chill that runs down the spines of those who catch glimpses of your pictures on the walls

The smell of the lasagna delivered to your family’s doorstep

The questions and comforting words addressed to your siblings at school

The hushing of children who speak too loudly and too insensitively near your parents

The growling of your sister’s stomach after days without eating

The bags under your mother’s eyes after sleepless nights of questioning herself

The apathy of your father during sports games because he remembered watching them with you

The shaking hands and uneven breathing of your honorary little brother

The clicking of your childhood friend biting their nails at the thought of what happened

The pleasant sound of songs now triggering tears at the memory of your appreciation of them

The long looks at your empty bed by your passing family member

The vocal pledge of your loved ones to always remember you with love

The silent thought that you are now free