–ache

Today Brother M. told a story about a boy who had a heart transplant when he was two years old. By age fifteen, he had worn out the donor heart and needed another one. His name was put on the list, but the procedure would still cost his family thousands of dollars. This young man prayed and prayed and finally told his parents he did not want another heart. He felt he had experienced enough of life, and now he would let someone else have a chance.
How his family was able to accept his decision, I will never know. They watched their son and brother deteriorate, but something was still keeping him here. Though he had been praying for months, the young man was uneasy. He was not sure that he was worthy to return to his Father in Heaven. That promised peace eluded him.
One evening, the boy's father, who I guess was a bishop, was giving temple-recommend interviews at church when the Spirit told him to go home to his son. There were people waiting, people with appointments, but he handed his schedule to a councilor and left. At the bedside, he listened to the young man describe his fear of dying in sin, of being too filthy to see Christ on the other side. The interview questions he had just been asking came to the father's mind. He asked his son the standard questions, assuring him that if he was worthy to enter God's presence in this stage of life, then he should be worthy to enter God's presence in the next.
The young man died that night.

My pondering drew the question: Am I afraid to die?
Surprisingly, I don't think I am. I'm afraid of heights and cockroaches, but not of death. Unlike the young man in the above story, I definitely do not feel like it is my time to go—I have not done whatever it is that I am supposed to do here. I do not relish the idea of my family grieving, either. But when it actually happens, what is there to be afraid of? A loss of pain and sickness? Seeing friends and relatives again? Getting a few more questions answered? An opportunity to work for the Kingdom without exhaustion? Doesn't sound too bad.