In covering a topic this sensitive, I begin by offering a faith-based perspective which comes from my Latter-day Saint community and theology, and I do so to get it out of the way as a sort of preface, because this journal entry is not predominantly about that – not about religion or faith or theology or belief. It’s about the weight of real world experience which I will get to in two paragraphs below.

But for this paragraph, let me set the premise that I do not fear death for myself in the slightest. I could feel great fear on the events that lead up to my eventual death. For instance, being trapped inside a wrecked car I cannot escape from which has then ignited into a horrible conflagration would be a horrific way to die. Being captured by cartel members and then tortured to death would be another horrific experience. But the act of death itself would represent, to me, a graduation from mortality and an entering into immortality. I firmly believe this life is not all there is. The atheists, (not to be confused with the agnostics) simply have it wrong, and I find the most outspoken of them – Sam Harris comes to mind – who present themselves as intellectually gifted strike me as abject morons. I believe there is a place I refer to as the Spirit World where the deceased go, no longer in possession of a body of flesh, bones, and blood, but as a disembodied spirit. And I imagine a reception line of loved ones who have gone before will be there to greet us. Beyond that, I do not know what to expect there. (Do we eat? Do we sleep? No clue.)

But this journal entry is not meant to be about such matters. I wish to reflect on the here and the now. I wish to focus on death as something I see others experience. For instance, CT, the mother of my nanny from 29 years ago, died just a few days ago. I’m sad for her husband who survived her. I’m sad for my former nanny and others from their family.

I am at an age where, assuming I live several more decades as I intend to, I am seeing and will continue to see many more people dying in this latter phase of my life than I have in the past. I know a lot of people. And most of them are older than I am. Death is inevitable. I will spend a good amount of time in the years ahead attending many a funeral.

Even my peers have faced death. I chaired my high school’s 40-year reunion in 2017. In so doing, I discovered that of the 427 students in my class of 1977 at Los Altos High School, thirty of them had died – about 7% of the class. Several have died since that reunion. I was close to a number of them. I cared very deeply about some of them. In a broad sense, I cared about all of them. While learning of their death was heart-wrenching, it’s hard to come to grips with the inevitability of death.

One of my favorite movies is The Matrix, starring Keanu Reeves as Thomas Anderson who goes by the code name Neo, and Hugo Weaving as the deadly killing machine, Agent Smith (who looks human but is actually a sentient program in human form). There is a scene near the close of the moving that finds Agent Smith and Neo on the railroad tracks of a subway. Agent Smith has Neo in a headlock, and as the sound of an approaching train is heard, Agent Smith tells the struggling Neo: “Do you hear that sound, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability. That is the sound of your death.”

However, Neo defies the odds and manages to avoid being hit by that train.

Every week I face an audience of about 80 to 100 people on Wednesday mornings (a different audience each week). The men and women I face are construction professionals. I usually have them for about 2 hours to teach them about safety, because they work in a chemical plant where they could be exposed to very dangerous chemicals. They are also vulnerable to falls, being crushed by heavy machinery, and countless other dangers. I actually show them that exact scene from The Matrix. After I show it, I tell them that just as with Neo, contrary to Agent Smith’s assurances, their death is not inevitable either. But what I mean by that is that just because they work in construction does not seal their fate; they don’t have to die just because they are in the construction industry.

But let’s face it. Death is, ultimately, inevitable. We can dodge death only for so long. Eventually, all of us here today, just like everyone who has gone before, must cross that threshold between life and death. It’s part of the plan.

And I am at peace with it.

Because all of us will ultimately conquer death.