The Art of Dying

I am both fearful and fascinated by death, and have been since a young girl. I laid awake at night, enduring mini panic attacks at the thought of my parents dying and leaving me alone. I stood stoic at my grandparents' funerals, dressed in my best attire, a smile pasted to my small face as I greeted mourners filing past the open caskets, wooden boxes filled with nothing more than decaying flesh and bone houses the spirit long ago abandoned. As an adult, I obsess over the paranormal, watching and reading everything I can get my hands on that either proves or disputes the presence of the afterlife. I search for God, the Creator, the Divine, in every nook and cranny, hoping for some small sign that He's got my back, that I have nothing to fear when I take my last breath, for He'll be waiting to receive me into His Kingdom. But what if it doesn't exist and it's all a great conspiracy, just a figment of the collective imagination?