An 80-year-old, well-to-do woman stepped into the beauty parlor, as she always did every beginning of the month. Her aura of elegance instantly filled the room. At once, the attendants greeted her, assisted her to the chair and immediately worked on her silky, silvery hair and fingernails.
“Madam, I personally envy you,” commented the young woman trimming her hair. “You seem to always stay on the prime of life, though passed your 80th birthday.”
The elderly lady sighed.
“To be honest, Child,” she said. “I am so tired of going on living. I’m over 80 and all the people I love had died – one by one, leaving me alone in this same, never-ending life. I wonder if God has forgotten to call me home.”
Imagine that!
Most of us – women in particular – are so afraid of aging. We get so anxious when time moves on toward our 30th or 40th birthday. We begin panicking when suddenly we find wrinkles under our eyes. We buy anti-aging cream, under-eye concealer and expensive cosmetics to keep our skin young. But they don’t prevent. They simply delay the process – for a relatively short time.
We fear cancer, stroke, osteoporosis, cholesterol and diabetes. We worry all the time at diseases lurking within our bodies, as if they’re burglars waiting to break into our homes. We don’t want to die on our deathbed, suffering from terminal illnesses.
We want to stay young, healthy and happy forever.
Isn’t it true for the majority of us?
The bad news is: that is not the axiom of living on Planet Earth.
Every living creature gets born, grows up, becomes mature, ages, declines and dies.
That’s the basic rule of life. Sadly, most of us humans only want to accept the first half. That leaves us living the second half of the process taunted by fear of death.
What’s so wrong about death anyway? It’s just as normal and natural as birth, if we’d want to have a second look. And death doesn’t have to be painful either.
(To be frank, some of us will have to admit that we actually fear the pain of dying instead of death itself.)
My late pastor once said, “Death has nothing to do with illness.”
He was quite right. He died after blessing his grandchildren and praying with them before going to bed. Then, he closed his eyes, fell into a deep sleep – and was gone.
Maybe we should pause for a while and give it a thought. Aging, decline and death are basically part of a natural process. There’s no use avoiding, preventing or denying them.
Instead of fearing the process of aging, why don’t we take it as a phase of growing into wisdom? And instead of being anxious about how we will die, try accepting that to die means to move on to a much better world – the world of eternity, the world where there is no more sadness, or worries, or fear, or unhappiness.
Perhaps by understanding and accepting these processes, we shall be able to live life to the full, without unnecessary anxieties. And living without worries may keep both our mind and body healthy till old age.
Then, we’ll be able to welcome death with open arms – to carry us to a far better realm.
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