Love and Death and Loneliness

Death is not a fun topic to talk about, but it is one that needs to be addressed. Needs to be thought about.

When I think about death, I don’t think about what’s waiting for me on “The Other Side.” And that’s how it’s said too, “The Other Side.” Kinda like “He Who Must Not Be Named” in Harry Potter. I figure, thinking about this “other side” isn’t going to do me much good in the here and now. No matter what your belief or creed is, you either believe in Heaven and Hell or you don’t. If you do, you try to go about your life living as honestly and as honorably as you can, and, hopefully, you get into Heaven. If you live like a criminal, down the hatch you go. Now say you don’t believe in a Heaven or a Hell, say you’re an atheist. You should still live honestly and honorably. I know admirable people who are religious and lead high-standard lives, and I also know people who aren’t religious at all and have high morals and values themselves.

I figure, no matter my faith, if I’ve led a good life then I will die a happy and content death. The actual dying is not what concerns me, though.

When I think of dying, I think of my friends and family. Who of us will be the last to die? Who of us will live to see old age? Who of us will watch all the others pass on? Who of us will be alone?

And I think…I want to be that one, the one who is left behind. Not because dying scares me and I want to postpone it for as long as I can. I think I’ll be able to handle the dying part. It’s because…I know what it is to be alone. Not that select friends and family don’t either, that’s not what I’m saying. But I KNOW that loneliness, that emptiness that comes from being solitary and feeling abandoned. I can cope with it, because I have before. I'm too familiar with it.  I’m not saying that those friends aren’t strong enough to manage living on their own when everyone else is gone. That’s not what I’m saying. My friends are strong in ways that I will never, ever be.

What I’m saying is, I don’t like when others feel alone. Especially the ones I care about. It’s a horrible, disgusting feeling, one that leaves me totally cold, if I think about it too much. One of the most depressing thoughts for me is imagining any one of my friends alone at the end of their life. Like a lost, elderly inhabitant of a nursing home. No family or friends coming to visit. Orderlies barely giving them a cursory glance.

It happens all the time.

I want so desperately to be the last to die, because I don’t want any of my loved ones doomed to that fate. I’d rather it be me that falls to the wayside. I’d rather it be me that feels forgotten. My friends are so good, so inherently good, and they do not deserve an end so dark and chill. I don’t want them to die, I don’t think anyone really wants to, but it’ll happen someday, and I just hope that I’m the last to go.

I love them too much to leave them behind.