When the Young Fall

Trey Smith

One of the quandaries that has perplexed humans all along the way is: Why do young people in the picture of good health sometimes [suddenly] die? One minute they are going about their routine lives and then, in the blink of an eye, they're gone. Forever.

As a person who has suffered from congenital neurological health issues all my life, I think about this issue a lot. Why is an old fart like me still trudging along at 54+ years, while somebody like 26 year old world swimming champ Dale Oen drops dead?

Oen was an elite athlete in far better shape than I have ever come close to. He swam with such grace, power and speed. I'm hard put to walk as much as few hundred feet before my body goes into full rebellion. Yet, here I am puttering along and his family is planning his funeral!

Why is it that some of the most feeble and sickly people live past the century mark, but others barely make it past the womb?

The answer to that question is that nobody really knows. It doesn't matter if a person believes that a supernatural entity has a "plan" for each of us. It doesn't matter if a person embraces the concept of karma. And it doesn't matter one iota if a person believes that life and death are purely random.

We can believe ANYTHING we want, but, at the end of the day, we don't genuinely know the answer OR if there even IS an answer. It is this not truly knowing that leads to the general anxiety inherent in living. We don't know how or why we are here and we don't know when or why we will leave.

All we do know (or think we know) is that we are here. Now. This moment. We also know (or think we know) that the day will come when we will cease to be here. Gone. Departed.

But when that final moment is to occur is the great and unsettling unknown.