“You’re right, there’s nothing more lovely, nothing more profound, than the certainty, than the certainty that all of this will all end” – OK Go.

Beautiful words that he had heard many times before. But after the mental and emotional rollercoaster of the last 8 or 9 months, they were only just now beginning to truly make sense. From a child right through until his forties, death was only really something that happened to other people, at least two or more degrees separated. Seeing other people grieve was alien and unknown to him. He could offer condolences and convincingly comforting words, while secretly always believing that he was himself invincible. Since the death of his own father, however, the realisation of his own mortality was a hefty blow, almost as great as, and certainly compounding, the actual grief itself.

Then one day, it clicked into place. Accepting his own mortality and no longer being afraid of it was the final piece of the puzzle for this most challenging of escape rooms. He was going to die one day, just as everyone else is destined to do, and this is a fact. Maybe the event itself would be traumatic and violent, or maybe it would be peaceful, who knows. In either case, animals tend to find a way of coping with the unbearable until it is over. What was the point in continuing to wallow in grief in self pity for the fear of death, constantly philosophising on the likelihood of an afterlife, or whether life itself is worth living, when he could just as well get on with enjoying the living of it.

The door was finally unlocked and he already had one foot across the threshold. Peering out into this new life with fresh eyes he thought to himself… “All I need to do is keep on going”.