by Louise Breland

Created on: December 14, 2006   Last Updated: May 17, 2007

I think that at one time or another the thought of death has been terrifying to all of us. When you think about no longer living and what is beyond your present existant, it causes you to fear.

Facing death use to scare me and reading the news or hearing about death was the source of depression for me at one time in my life. When I was younger, hearing about someone my age dying really scared me, because young people were not suppose to die, only old people.

When my Mother died, it was the hardest time in my life. Once everything was said and done, I had to move on. After her death about 2 years later I was looking for a job and I found one at the cematery where my Mother is buried. I took that job just so that I could visit my Mother's grave everyday that I went to work. I was able to make sure that the grass was cut and no trash was around her grave site.

It was during that time that I began to face my immortality! My Mother is buried in a two grave plot and on her grave is a headstone and on that stone is her name and my name. On that headstone is the date that I was born and a blank space for when I die. Each day that I looked at my name on that stone brought realization that one day I would be in that grave. That gave me such an odd feeling knowing that the foundation of my death has already been laid.

That was 27 years ago and I am still here. Knowing that I have survived so long and at the same time knowing that I could have been in that grave a long time ago for living my life in such a way that many times I could have died but I had not!

My only fear of death is how I die. I often pray that when I die that if it is a violent death that it is swift. That is my only fear. Facing death is the one thing that every living breathing creature on this earth will have to face, there is no way around it. There is only the acceptance of what will be will be.

Learn more about this author, Louise Breland.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.