I’m not afraid of dying. In fact, I’m kind of looking forward to the whole process. I like living, but I’ve been there and done that. I’m one of those people who likes new experiences, even if they’re experiences you only get to try once.
Of course, there are those people who get to die a number of times before they actually get it right. My younger brother was one of those having been run over by a car at the tender age of six.
Death is a subject I’m ok discussing and after reading Stiff: The curious lives of human cadavers by Mary Roach, I’m even more comfortable with it. I spoke about death a great deal with my father growing up. Being raised catholic, I was constantly told what might happen after I died, but not much about what happened WHILE I was dying. The process interests me greatly and when I would ask the priests at my gradeschool when I was 8 or 9, I’d get the short shrift. This just forced me to seek other avenues of enlightenment, much to Father McKinley’s chagrin.
Anyway, the process of dying still interests me. I mean, we are all going to die eventually, right? Might as well be prepared. While it is important to live well, it is much better to die well and if I can’t go out in a hail of gunfire, I want to go out bloated on a toilet seat beaned to the moon on narcotics with exotic names.
Anyway, as far as I’m concerned, when we die, what’s left isn’t really all that valuable. Of course, these are my personal beliefs and I wouldn’t hold it against you if you thought differently. When I die, I don’t want to be cremated, buried, stuffed, or even mourned. I want to be composted!