I don't think there is life beyond death. I don't. But I do believe that we get this clarity in the last minute of our life. The titles we achieved, the honors we managed, they all vanish. You are left alone with you and your deeds and the things you didn't do.
Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.
I don't think anybody's necessarily ready for death. You can only hope that when it approaches, you feel like you've said what you wanted to say. Nobody wants to go out in mid-sentence.
I've always thought that if my death was imminent, I would read. When I can't focus on a book, I tend to keep reading the same page. My guess is, I would've read, like the first page of Nicholas Nickleby over and over again.
Final thoughts are so, you know, final. Let's call them closing words.
At the end of our life our questions are simple: Did I live fully? Did I love well?
I was with my dad 20 years ago as he was dying. I was there at the moment of his death, and I kept wondering the whole while what it must feel like from his point of view to still be there thinking, hearing all that was going on as people came and went, and life continued all around him.
The conscience of the dying belies their life.
It is often said that before you die your life passes before your eyes. It is in fact true. It's called living.
9/11 revealed that those about to die do not seem afraid or plead for forgiveness for their sins, if they think about them at all. They all have one thing in mind - those they love - and they all do the same thing: They call them up - spouses, family or friends - to tell them they love them.
I bet the worst part about dying is the part where your whole life passes before you.
