Saying Goodbye To Death

Death is a topic I have “written around the bushes” about but have never blatantly spelled out— maybe because I’m not quite sure how.

For starters, the news in itself is never easy to hear or say, regardless of your connection to it.

This especially hit me when I was going through some of my own articles in search of one that could help one of my residents. I’m currently an RA for college freshmen, and when I discovered that one of my resident’s best friends passed away, I felt like it was my duty to give her everything it would take to fill the void of her loss. However, I was completely shocked when I realized that I had absolutely nothing to share but loose ends.

So maybe I haven’t written an article solely about death because it is something I’m not quite sure I will ever understand. But is it really something we should want to understand?

I’ve lost several people in my life, ranging from an acquaintance to even my mom, and yet—I can’t seem to familiarize myself with death. But I’m starting to think death is something that a person will never fully be able to grasp whether they want to or not.

Maybe we just simply need to let death rest in peace, and stop justifying why it happened or how it happened, and instead, embrace it for what it is.

I’m not saying death is something to bury and forget. I just don’t think we should allow it to haunt the rest of our lives either. Because as everything that starts must end, every end really does allow for new beginnings. And I think that is something that we need to especially remember when we feel like our fate is so out of reach.

I know for certain that if my mom didn’t pass away when she did, I would not be the person I am today. In an odd way, her end was my new beginning. But in order to fully start over and move on to new beginnings, I needed to let her go first. She can still live on, and I fully believe she does, but how I allow her to live on shouldn’t wind up becoming the death of me. And boom, it turns out I knew exactly what to tell my resident, I just didn’t have it typed out word-for-word.

So, to go back on why I haven’t written about death point-blank until now—it’s because I have come to the conclusion that we shouldn’t give death any more company than necessary. What I mean is that, all this time, I thought death was something I was supposed to understand, but maybe all there really is to understand about death is that there may be nothing to understand at all.

It happens. But it shouldn’t be the only thing that happens to us. It is destined, but it is not our sole destiny. So let’s love our fate for what it is, and not worry about when our fate or others’ fates run out.

Thoughts? Let us know in the comments, or tweet us @litdarling.