COMMENT | A friend, years younger than me, died two weeks ago. His Facebook profile, though, is very much alive with videos of his recent family holidays and goodbyes from friends.

As friends pass away, and some come to terms with their devastating cancer prognoses, it makes me pause and reflect on the possibilities in life and the finality of death.

Sooner or later we will confront the reality of our own mortality and walk through the ‘valley of the shadow of death’. It is not death that I fear, though, not as much as the saddening thoughts of loved ones I will leave behind, and the process of dying that raises many existential questions.

What have I really done to help others during my productive years? What will I do or change if I know I have only a few months left to live?

How will I die? What happens after my life’s screen fades to black? None knows a rational answer to the latter, except perhaps through one’s faith in a divine force and a belief in the hereafter.

As I grow older and see the people I love pass on, I wonder about what the Psalmist had said about “the days of our years”, be they in “three score years and ten”, or if “by reason of strength they be four score years” are soon “cut off, and we fly away”.

Yes, with few signs or silent warnings, our lives may be cut short and we fly away. At this time of writing, countless cells in my body are dying. Some are being repaired or replaced by new ones. Some are programmed to self-destruct. Some, by chance, mutate into cancerous tumours.

The physical body breaks down faster than you’d think once you cross the 60-year mark. There’s an awry sense of one’s wellbeing diminishing, our cognitive state slowly declining, regressing to a second childhood to one day relying on others to change, wash and feed us. That’ll be the day I dread...