Living and Dying

Subject: Living and dying.

What will it be that taps us on the shoulder and gestures us away. What event, a car crash an aeroplane disaster, simply stepping off the road whilst looking the wrong way. Or will it be an unexpected illness, a heart attack perhaps a stroke or a long debilitating illness like MS. Will it be Alzheimer's, that slow disconnect with reality where, in our eyes the person we knew has died whilst the person lives on, unreachable but maybe content in their mental shut down. Then there's Cancer that scourge which is a disease but not a disease, an over replication of cells, which goes on naturally from conception but  suddenly the order is replaced by chaos. There is no shock to the system, like an impact or a cut. No virus or poison just a moment in time when the bodies maintenance system  which has reproduced trillions of cells, just goes haywire for no apparent reason. There's no antidote, no vaccine and no warning. You have cancer.
Perhaps it's this silent nature of the change within your body which is so difficult to accommodate like a thief who steels your precious time and you reflect, why me and why now. 
Coming to terms with our mortality has always been a philosophical question, it was usually about others who had passed away, people you knew, people of your generation, friends and even family but not somehow you. Your own death was never in your thoughts and if it was you rather thrust those thoughts away as being unhelpful. 
But now with the knowledge of your own private cancer a new perspective on life, a new route is being taken, a new regime is put in place to confront this thing you have never taken seriously, your mortality. 
Time lines are drawn, the visualisation of our fragility and the hypocrisy which attends our lives, thinking that our experience will go on and on, as if it were a right. The concept of our 'immortality' is part of the protest we make, of seeing ourselves as special when in fact, all we are is a cell replicating process which at any time can go wrong.
Can we confront our mortality with religious conviction, yes of course we can. Can we pacify our fear by studying a philosophical treatise which applauds death as it gives the believer an opportunity for rebirth and improvement. The assumption being that life is not just for living but a period for study and preparation. 
There are of course many who have no props, no belief in a life beyond death, only nostalgia and a pragmatism which protects us from the truth, that like the wind we come and go. 
Life is a biography, a series of stories and events which for good or bad have been the stepping stones of our varied lives. Looking back if we can envisage that we did no intentional harm, that we engaged where we could with openness, and resolutely refused to hold a grudge. If we sense satisfaction, not of the money we didn't make but of the lasting friendships we did. If we can, in part hold to Kipling's famous poem If, which sets out some of the criteria for having lived a good life, then your purpose in life is fulfilled, be you a Christian, Buddhist or Atheist.