The Fear Of Nothingness

For years, approximately 30 years, I've wondered about death in general and my death in particular. Fifteen or twenty years ago I had a clinical anxiety problem based on my fear of death. I figured that death ended everything. No more pizzas, movies or colorful sunsets. Those things would be replaced by nothingness. The nothingness would be so complete that I wouldn't even be aware of the nothing. For months, that whole scenario kept me awake at night. Somewhere along the line that anxiety ebbed and then flowed. I still do not like the concept of my death, but nowadays I am able to sleep at night.

I'm 75. Just today I wondered how I was going to die. The thought came into my head as I was walking to my sofa and the nearby TV carefully carrying my dinner of a freshly microwaved bean and cheese enchilada. I realized that at that very moment I could have a massive heart attack or a stroke. The enchilada would fall from my hands as I dropped over, legally dead before I hit the floor. This possibility exists with anyone at any time but it is more likely for a guy of 75. And perhaps even a bit more possible for a guy who regularly eats microwave enchiladas. Instant death. It isn't a bad way to go, I have decided. Preferably, it would not come today but at age 94 or even 98.

I occasionally worry about waking up in the morning with a sharp headache or abdominal pain and driving myself to the hospital emergency room where an x-ray determines that I have a tumor. After a week or so of painful biopsies and various other tests, it is concluded that the prognosis is terminal. I am then living out the string in physical and emotional discomfort. My friends would be overly compassionate. I can still be humorous and even deliver a good, self-effacing joke, but my friends can't hear the humor and chuckle nervously out of sympathy. In the end, my last moments, I am laying in bed, my vision is blurry as my throat gurgles with labored breaths. That particular scenario does have one positive note. There would be no mess of an enchilada falling to the floor.