Living Life without Fear of Death Part One

In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Finite Creatures.”

Today’s Blogging 101 assignment is to use a writing prompt as a starting point for a blog post. I chose this one from a few months ago, which asked “At what age did you realize you were not immortal? How did you react to that discovery?”

In reference to my physical body, I don’t believe I ever thought of it as immortal. My father died when when I was a toddler, just a few weeks after my younger brother’s birth, so death seemed as real as life–something that happens to everyone. I have a picture I drew in kindergarten of my family, and included with the stick figures labeled “Mommy” “Van” and “Laurie” is “Daddy,” the father I didn’t remember as a physical presence in my life. According to my aunt, when my mother saw the picture, she gently reminded me that I didn’t have a daddy, but I said, “Yes I do, my daddy is in heaven.” We visited his grave occasionally, and I grew up with a love of old cemeteries. They don’t seem morbid or scary to me, I suppose because I associate them with memories of my mother and the conversations we had about my father. She didn’t spend those visits crying, but instead shared stories so we would have some connection to him. To be continued….

I took this photo a few years ago in a cemetery in Fairhope, Alabama, just a few weeks after Mardi Gras. I call it “Laissez les bons temps rouler!”

The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. ~Mark Twain