Very well written, my friend. I felt it, really felt the nothingness and the fear of it. I can remember fearing the death of others as a child but oddly not my own death. Not so much that I feared they would go into nothingness but I feared losing them physically.

I got a spanking once, around 10 years old strangely enough, for telling someone that the woman’s body was dead but her soul lived on and could come back. I was trying to comfort her. But THAT wasn’t something I had been taught by my Protestant family and it didn’t go over well! “Where did you hear that young lady?” “I didn’t hear it anywhere, I just know it.” “Well, just un-know it right now!”

The age of 10 seems to be very significant in our memories of awakenings and awareness, doesn’t it?