death

I don't usually do this, but I wanted to share a journal entry I had while on the plane going to Vienna, Austria.

"Jan. 4, 2005 Time: who knows"
"I just had these thoughts race through my head as i woke up from my nap about my own death. I imagined that I was already dead because our plane was shot down fromt he sky and the 'reality' I was experiencing was heaven. Then I woke from my imaginative state, knowing that I'm alive now, I started to imagine what my death experience would be like. After watching my both of my grandparents pretty much die before my eyes in the hospital, I imagined laying in a hospital bed about to breathe my last breath and what it must of felt like, smelled like, tasted like. If it would be painful. Another scenario came into my head, probably from watching too much TV, but it was as if someone shot me in the head and what it would have felt like to die almost instantaneously. Seeing the bullet enter my skull, into my brain and the nerves and etc. etc. [I know this is kind of weird, I thought so too]. At first having all these thoughts race through my head created anxiety, it also wasn't the first time I've imagined this. But just as soon as I felt that helplessness, a truth surfaced that gave me peace in that moment. We are helpless. We are not in control of our last breath, we can't tell our hearts to keep beating, or will an accident not to happen. Life is short and sometimes when we think about our own death we realize what is really important. Our priorities realign. All the striving, grasping, wanting, attaining will count for nothing in the end. And the funny this is, when you die, the hard truth is everything eventually goes back to the way things were. Life will go on with or without you.
I want to do things that matter, not to anyone else's eyes, but to the eyes of the creator. to feed the poor, give hope to the hopeless, give a cup of cold water to the thirsty, to love the least lovable person as if they were the ones that I loved most. For now these are just thoughts. While I'm still far from where I'm supposed to be, I realize I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be."