Letting Go

"In life there is nothing certain but death and taxes.'' - Benjamin Franklin

It has been a week overshadowed by death, and by taxes. With a funeral to attend tomorrow, it got me thinking about what dying means. Unless you belong to one of them nutty movements that thinks a spaceship will come whisk you away to paradise, death is as certain as it ever gets. The final full stop. But within death itself, few things are set in stone.

We all have some kind of idea of how we want to die (painlessly), how we are likely to die (old age and illness) and how we don't want to die (insert your choice of torture).

But few people actually know with certainty how it's really going to happen, except, maybe, the poor buggers on death row. It's not just "the great leveller", it is the last great roulette. As has been a hot topic this month, when some people are confronted with a means of death too long and painful, they may wish to, um, unnaturally expedite their end. It's like letting go of life, before it lets go of you.

One thing that seems 100 per cent for sure though, is that people unfailingly get warm and fuzzy about those who died.

They always say nice things about dead people. Even if the dead dude wasn't really that compassionate and that loving, even if some mourners didn't pay much attention to him when he was alive and well. Maybe even Hitler or Pol Pot got something nice said about them by at least one person.

I used to think I'd die being blasted apart reporting some war in a land ruled by a despot leader. These days, I just hope not to hang on to life too long if I get truly ill. Hah! I am, in a sense, a let-goer.