It occurred to me today that preparing for a trip—all the many months of planning and making reservations and thinking that the departure day will never arrive—resembles what happens when our death day happens. I realize this must sound gloomy and will probably chase away a few readers, but the parallels are there.
The one thing we can be certain of is death, but just as a departure day for a trip can change, so can our death day. We may have several run-ins with it. When we’re anticipating a trip (I know, we don’t usually anticipate death the way we do a vacation, though taking this attitude could help us to embrace it more positively), it seems as if the day we leave will never arrive. We fantasize about the places we’ll stay, the sights we’ll see.
Quickly this analogy is breaking down: not many of us, I’m sure, spend much time wondering about where we’ll be when we die or anticipating death’s arrival. Of course, we can speculate on reincarnation or ending up in other dimensions. Or we just might consider death as a vacation from life rather than a permanent condition.
I prefer this last approach.
