Personal Narrative: The Existence Of Death

All of my childhood, I spent it playing superhero. You see back then I was invincible. With one hi-yah I could defeat the supervillain and rescue my Lois Lane. But that fun and games were soon lost. I was 7 years old when I realized, I’m anything but invincible. My life was smooth sailing until my Grandmother died. Standing there looking at her open casket made me realize that death exists and that I am just mortal. This wasn’t some comic book where nobody stays dead. In our world, the end is forever. Ernest Becker, a cultural anthropologist, and writer once said,”Man has a mind that soars out to speculate about atoms and infinity, who can place himself imaginatively at a point in space and contemplate his own planet. This immense expansion, this dexterity, this ethereality, this self-consciousness gives to man the status of a small god in nature...Yet, at the same time... man is a worm and food for worms." There is an unbearable awareness of our own morality― we are born with a death sentence. In the next eight minutes of my life, I will use it to first explain why we fear death, then how we cope with having a death …show more content…
We crave to leave behind a name for ourselves whether that be through the success of their work or of their families. My Mom was basically the modern day Wonder Woman to me. She’s strong, determined, and always knew the truth even without the lasso. She was born in Vietnam in the 1960s, death surrounded her. She remembers hiding in under rice bags when bombs were being dropped from above and going outside in the morning to see her entire village burned. My Mother is a strong woman who wouldn't let death get the best of her. She lived through the Vietnam War and came here to the states to continue her