Life & Death

Where death waits for us is uncertain; let us look for him everywhere

French Renaissance writer Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

First I find out I have heart disease and spend three days in the hospital. Then yesterday a big-ass asteroid nearly hits the earth, and at the same time a meteorite explodes over the Ural mountains in Russia injuring 1,000.

I go the pharmacy to pickup my new heart medications and I’m nearly hit walking across the parking lot by a guy in a BMW talking on his cell phone as he speeds along, oblivious to everything. I should have done a Ratso Rizzo on him: Hey! I’m walkin’ here!

I have to worry about my heart giving out, I have to dodge thoughtless drivers zipping through parking lots, and now I have to keep an eye on the sky for wayward meteors.

Death is nosing around, ready to jump out and snatch me away. I notice and begin to think about my own mortality. Something I’ve been avoiding. Who wants to think about their own demise, of The End?

Sure, I get a little paranoid. But now I’m really into this whole death thing. I’ve  already composed my last words: Wait a minute! I’m not done yet!

And I’ve come up with my preferred way to meet Death: At age 96, I’m shot in the back by a jealous husband as I walk home from my favorite bar.

Oh, just in case, my last thought is to accept Jesus Christ as my Savior. My many sins washed away, I go straight to heaven. If there is no God, no harm done (see Pascal’s Wager).

We come from nothing, we are going back to nothing  — In the end what have we lost? Nothing!
Monty Python’s Graham Chapman

Chart compares the odds of dying in any given year from things like accidents, gun shot, choking, lightning, bee sting, fire…

Oh, great. Heart disease is the number one cause of death — that’s the bullet I’m betting has my name on it.

Odds are also relatively good that one unlucky day an accident will get me — some asshole like that guy on the cell phone in the Walgreen’s parking lot will cause this horrific crash on the freeway, a scene right out of Red Asphalt, and I’ll be in the wrong place at the wrong time and air-expressed home to Jesus.

The least likely way I’ll be drop-kicked to heaven is by an asteroid or meteorite taking me out — the odds of that happening are about 75 million to one. See Death by Meteorite

All our days travel toward death, and the last one reaches it.
Montaigne

Death of Ratso Rizzo Poor guy dies just as he realizes his dream of moving to Florida