We do not choose to be born, but we can decide with complete lucidity to choose when and how to leave the world. This is our only true freedom, namely to disappear when we think we have served our time before suffering the outrages in the physical, psychological and intellectual decline of a sneaky neurodegenerative or muscular disease that destroys our being.
The Christian vision of death in the form of a crucified person mocked, scourged, pierced by a spear, believing himself abandoned by his father, is terrifying and permeates our lives even to the ordeals which adorn our roads and country lanes. Death in violent torture goes against what is happening in reality: the cessation of our vital functions is only the end of the combustion of a body whose atomic elements disperse to go elsewhere.