Life is hard and short. But it is so for everybody. In the end the fear of dying is just an extension of our confusion about why we are here. Religion puts a neat solution into the hands of many but anybody who thinks hard quickly realises that any one of the religions is unlikely to be right in every detail although they may be correct in the spirit. The question of what is the meaning of life haunts us as we die as equations haunt the dreams of a student who knows a test is too close to study for. What happens to us after death? I have no idea. In truth I suspect that nothing happens although I no longer hold that to be the absolute truth I did when I was younger. Perhaps this possibility is just the desperate wish of a man with not long to live. Perhaps I am older and wiser. In the end nobody can know what we are here for or what happens after we die and anybody who claims to know for sure is a simpleton or a fraud. Indeed the mystery in life is one if its greatest draw cards. So as we face death a million unanswerable questions swell in the mind. These questions are not unique but still deeply personable and profoundly emotional. I do not know the answers but the questions themselves are beautiful beyond description.