What is a meaningful death?

By Bett

10-24-2002

They arrested two men this morning. They think they might be connected with the 10 deaths by the sniper in Washington DC and the surrounding area. The sniper shot 13 people randomly for three weeks from 10-02-02 till 10-24-2002. They were shoot randomly while pumping gas or coming out of a store. One 13-year-old boy was shot while going to school.

They are not thought to be connected with any group although the 40-year-old man became a Muslim recently. He was arrested with a second man who is 17 years old. The 40-year-old man is named John Allen Muhammad   and the 17-year-old John Lee Malvo.

          They were caught because “the Sniper” called police saying he was connected to a murder in Alabama. They investigated. The two men had a house there. The police put out the description of the blue car the men own. Just a few hours later someone saw it at a rest stop. The police say they were sleeping inside the car. There was no incident during the arrest.

          The people of the DC area have been living in feat for the last three weeks. A community seized by terror. The killings were so senseless before we found these two men, but now how much more senseless and meanness were the deaths of the innocent people?

How do the family members reconcile the deaths? So senseless. So horrible. Why!! Why do these people do things like this? I know that this world could be a better world where things make sense. A world where death means something. I don’t care what Dr. Pangloss says, but this is not it.

          At least the 9-11 attackers had a purpose… but that too was senseless. These snipers had absolutly no purpose. No apparent goals. Just meaningless killings. All those people. I have to believe that the way a person dies matters. If they die saving others, then it matters. Yet most people die of disease or in accidents. Do these deaths have meaning too? Maybe it only matters what you did with the life you had. Maybe any death can be meaningful if the person spent their time helping others and serving humanity.

          We all die. So how you die will be an extension of how you lived. If you serve humanity then when you die it will be serving humanity. Death is not a solitary event, but encompassed by the life that is ending. Therefore perhaps some of those died died in a noble way while others may not have. We cannot choose how we die but we can choose how we live. We need to keep doing what is right until we get called out of the world. My dad once said, “When the lifeguard blows the whistle to signal the pool is closing I am going to be swimming as hard as I can.”