We Are All Equals

• James Fry, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2015

In death, we are all equals. Whether we die in a horrific accident or quietly in our sleep, whether we are old, young, rich or poor, death does not care. There is no fairness in death.
We all fear death. There are those who embrace it, those that have lived a full life and know there is nothing left for them here. But as a species, we fear death. It makes us unique. Only humans know that our lives are finite.
We fear death because of the unknown, in the same way we fear the dark: because we do not truly know what comes after, just as we do not truly know what is out there in the night, obscured by the shadows.
In many ways it is worse for those left behind. The person who has died, whether they have gone to Heaven, or just passed into oblivion, they are happy or know nothing. Those left behind, the friends and family, are the ones that have to cope with the loss.
Like most things, it gets easier as time progresses. The more loss that you experience, the better you are able to cope with it. That doesn’t make it painless, but it can be easier to move on with life, and not be shackled to the present and the past.
Shackled to the present. Chained to the memory of those who have passed away. An appropriate analogy, I believe. It can be cruel and painful to think of the future when another has just been denied theirs.
I sit here writing this a day after learning a friend has passed on. He was just a few months younger than me; he didn’t even make it to eighteen. And it is cruel. But that is life. Life and death are intertwined; there cannot be one without the other. It is a balance, a symmetry seen often in nature. In the beginning, it is said that God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. He created light and dark, Heaven and Earth, everything with an opposite.
Some believe that life is a cycle, that we are all reborn. There is another cycle that I experience now, a cycle of sadness and guilt. In order to avoid sadness, I try to avoid thinking about him. Then I feel guilt for not being sad, and so the cycle continues.
There is always sympathy, for those suffering, for those who have died. Sympathy for those who now feel the loss, like a tear in the world, and for the ones who passed on, for what they lost: the rest of the life they had yet to live.
In this divided world, death unites us all. The conflicts of this world, stemming from hate, jealousy, differences, they all have one thing in common: they bring death and misery to both sides. Why can we simply not fight? Why can’t we live in peace, in the little time we have left?