Death is....

     I was on facebook last night you know just kind of scrolling through the newsfeed, avoiding homework, chores, ect. when I saw a pictue that my friend had liked. I clicked on it and read a story about a guy in his physics class talking arguing with his teacher about God. I'm pretty sure the story was fake, but there was a quote in it that I really liked. I think many people misconstrue death. This quote explains kind of where my outlook on death is. He said, "Death isn't the opposite of life, it's the absence of it." To explain this theory, he used the potent exaxmple of cold and heat. Heat is an energy. You can create it. Cold is not an energy. You can't create it. It is simply the absence of heat. Death can't happen without life. Life is a thing, we can create it. A person can't die unless they have been born. It is a result of life. Some people allude to death. Some people can't fathom it. In movies, books, paintings, and other creative works, death is almost always captured as a sad sorrowful time. It is rainging outside, everyone is wearing black, sad music is playing, clairvoyant people are trying to console sad mothers with news from their lost loved ones, ect. However, life and youth are usually captured as exciting, eventful, it is a beautiful day in the summer. Everyone is at the pool, wearing bright yellow and orange, fast, lively music is playing, funny, obnoxious teens are pranking each other. However, for me, death isn't this dark, terrible thing. I am extremely religious, so my outlook on death from that perspective is that it's something that we should be excited about because everything on Earth that bothers us, hurts us, makes us sick, ect. will be gone and we will be in the presence of our perfect creator. It will be a perfect, placid place. However, I know that people all have different thoughts on the afterlife and I want this to be a blog post, not a sermon, and I don't want this to be an endemic paper, so I will try to keep it more my overall opinion on death than my religious opinion. Death is certainly unfathomable because our knowledge is very superficial. We have all not existed at a certain time, but in my opinion that isn't how death is. Death is much bigger and more complex than that. Death could be thought of in the litteral tense. You know... when someone stops breathing, their brain doesn't work, their heart doesn't pump blood, ect. Death could be thought of as conclusive, the end all. But I don't think of it that way. I don't think this perspective is disreputable, I just have a different opinion than I believe a lot of people do. I think that death is an adjective. It describes someone. Death is also a state of being. It is a condition. It is very possible to be dead while your heart is pumping blood, and you're breathing, and your brain is working. In the same way, you can be alive when you aren't breathing, your heart isn't pumping blood, and your brain isn't working. What am I talking about??? Here's a story... My friend, Keegan, died this summer. When I say this I mean the way you think of death not the crazy stuff I was just talking about. She crashed into a telephone pole that was protruding from the ground... well I guess all of them do... anyway, she wasn't wearing her seatbelt and flew through the sunroof. So yes, she died, but is that it? This girl who was known to be an exemplary person with high integrity just doesn't exist anymore? Of course not. Actually, she is still alive. She is still influencing people. Her brother, her parents, her step-sisters, her friends, her aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone else who knew her well are being affected by her daily. Her brother, parents, adn friends think of her every day. She influences a lot of decisions that they make. She has affected many many people with such a tragic death and will continue to. So, even though she isn't alive, she isn't gone either. Famous people like Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and others come to mind when using this example because they too did not die. Their legacy could live on forever. When you think about it, everyone, whether it's Michael Jackson or Keegan Ward, has affected others and when they are gone, the lives of those they have touched will be forever changed. However, like I said earlier, you can also be dead while still living. I think of those who are depressed. So depressed that they talk to no one. Now unlike those who are physically dead, these people are unconnected with the world. Whether their depression is for a pretext or a truely sad, harsh circumstance, they're lives are not the same as a dead or living person. Their loved ones don't really miss them because they are still here, but it's like a vegetable in a human body. It's hard to connect to them on any level. They are affecting those around them, but not in a positive way or in a way that makes people talk about them and remember them. It is as if they aren't here. However, if they died, they would be missed, talked about, remembered, moms would write books, dads would give speeches, ect. But while they are alive, they are more dead. I also believe that sometimes death is more powerful than life. When I say this, the one thing that always comes to mind (besides Christian martyrs) is bully victims. If a person is bullied and there is a news report interviewing them, people say, "How terrible.", "Those bullies should be stopped", or even "Well they are just looking for attention. They are being guile." However, when someone commits suicide like Phoebe Prince or any others, people want to take action. Things like Rachel's Challenge get started. Death brings on things that life never could. Death isn't just an itinerary. It is something that I belive placates all of us in a way life never could. Death is not black and white. Death is... starkly unclear. Death is... the absence of life, not the opposite of it.
FWI: none of this was plagiarism. (sorry couldn't think of another way to fit this in!)


song: If I Die Young by: The Band Perry