I am surrounded by people who take the inevitability of death with a lightness I have never understood. Christians often appear to be secure in their dying. The death space is given to me as a cheerful encounter that I am lesser for fearing.

I once heard that every anxiety has its root in a fear of death. If we weren’t to fear death, would we fear anything at all? To accept the ultimate unknown is to be free from the trap of rumination. The doubt in anxiety is abandoned through acceptance.

But we forget that our lives are often lived as though we are eternal. I work for ‘end goals’ all the time. At the moment, they are dates in the calendar to write for, to practice for and study for. Part of the fear is to endure the cold sweat of knowing everything I work for could be over so quickly.

Then I am in a parallel landscape where capitalism makes no sense and my small space on earth feels painfully fragile and ephemeral. I almost feel like I’m floating from overwhelm at how much I pretend I will live forever. To live only in this moment, but act like I live in the future and then face death’s unpredictability. Of course I’m scared.

I am persuaded to save diligently, to invest. To work alone. I have to choose to wait for things to change before I can make decisions. And so I am scared to die in the middle of the waiting. In the middle of working and sacrificing and loving. Is it not human to fear the loss of all this?

A rhetoric around the simplicity of accepting death feels both toxic and unrealistic. Are those that accept it free from the pain of love, grief and fear? If acceptance can be reached, it would be impossible without a dark and fearful journey to trust. Maybe fear of death is a universal human experience.