Death comes twice for everyone, though few will admit the fact.  I was of the majority.  I did not invite death the first time.  And so now, as it is coming upon me again, it rapes my soul against my will, taking all I ever thought I was living for.  All the hopes that had festered deep in my psyche about an afterlife of rest or reunions or peace have been obliterated, dissipating as dust beaten off a dirty rug.  The relationships I did not cherish and the people I devalued by all manner of insult, from indifference to deliberate slander, and the selfishness, which all too often permeated my life all stand before me now.  They all stand before me solemnly.  Not taunting and not in revenge as I would expect one to do, but instead with somber demeanor they convict me. 
     I now realize how much I had lied to myself.  Not about the first death.  I knew... everyone knew that we had a choice about our first death.  We could wait for biology to be interrupted, whether by nature or ourselves or others.  Or we could sacrifice ourselves upon the altar of reality and embrace an earlier death, a death which would mean laying down our egos and our wants and sometimes even our needs in order to follow a more honorable path, one which only required a moments reflection for most of us to see it as a champion of justice far more noble than the self serving life we had chosen for ourselves. 
     But true nobility isn't flashy enough.  Honor, when held side by side with the rest of the world, has only a soft, warm glow.  Especially when compared to the brightness and excitement of the slogans I personally lived by.  And so the lie was born …the lie, which says that the early, sacrificial death is unnecessary.  Once the biological death claims you, there is nothing more beyond.  At least that is what I would say, but I could never think beyond the grave without wondering if there was something more.  If there was nothing more, then life with and without the sacrificial death can be compared and either one picked over the other without a thought beyond the personal, life-long results and ramifications.  In the final analysis, nothing else mattered except myself.  If, however, there was to be a time past biology, when I would once again experience some aspect of reality, then I cannot think of just myself.  I must think of life in a completely different manner.  I must see it more as a pilot sees a take-off compared to the flight.  No matter what else you might find interesting or distracting, nothing is nore important than getting into the air. 
     But I have not begun to fly, and instead have driven myself down the runway of time and directly over the precipice of infinity. I am now beginning to see my first glimpse of Hell, and I am truly amazed at how wrong I was.  I guess I had expected liquor by the barrel and orgies and a whole new world free from all the rules I ever wanted to break.  But those things can only be enjoyed in a good creation where the image of God still permeates the soul of every man, and where the pleasures he created still exist to be misused.  But this is not the good creation.  This is not earth, and I am not still human.  I have passed the resurrection of all souls, and have been handed over to death for my second appointment... an appointment over which I could have had more control.  There is nothing left of me except the soul I cultivated throughout my life by my actions, thoughts, and intentions.  This is the soul I have sown and it will be the soul I will reap for the remainder of eternity. 
     I could have invited death while I was still in the body, and then the biological death would have concluded the matter.  Unfortunately, I allowed death to begin with the end of my body, and so from here on, my appointment with death is unending.  I wish I had chosen differently the first time. 
     Death comes twice for everyone.