.jpg)
Darl Angelica G. Panti
The stillness of the night always had a way to amplify the thoughts daylight politely ignores. Often the last one awake, I hold the world while I watch it under its breath. While some people count sheep, I count the ways I might suddenly stop existing. What really happens next? Where do I go after I take my final breath? Will I experience the moment as it slips away, or does it simply happen without my awareness?
These thoughts often occupy a space in my mind I never invite them to. Sometimes, just like a soft knock on the door of my consciousness; other nights, it barges in—heavy and impossible to ignore. When people are asked what they think happens after we die, devout and religious people say either heaven or hell, spiritual people say reincarnation, and atheists will say the same thing that happened before we were born—nothing.
When I try to picture “nothing,” I think of a blankness, only for it to collapse into some kind of presence. Even the void I try to imagine has shape and color. Giving up, I just think that maybe the human mind wasn’t naturally built to imagine its own absence.
Sometimes, I picture death just like a deep sleep, where I would dissolve into the quiet and stay there. Other times, I imagine waking up somewhere unfamiliar. Somewhere I would have never imagined it would look like. Then there’s a version I like the most: crossing into a place where everyone I have ever loved is waiting for me. Maybe childish, but it is kind. And when faced with the unknown, kindness feels wiser for me than any certainty. I hold on to that idea because they soften the hard edges of fear, reminding me that even if death comes, there is room for warmth and reunion.
In the Philippines, we treat death as a sacred subject, but not a conversational one. You can pray for the dead, but it’s not nice to talk to the living about what it means to join them one day. As a child, I saw candles being set up in front of the neighborhood’s doors during “undas,” glowing like tiny watch lights, each flame holding the presence of loved ones we have lost. Walking along those streets, I felt fear, as if I were treading along a runway of ghosts. I remember hearing adults murmur about souls and salvation, but never about death itself, never about what it truly meant for life to leave this world.
Filipinos often speak about returning to God, now more than ever, more often than not, but rarely about returning to nothing. We are presented with death as a transition, like being sent to either heaven or hell, and not as cessation. This binary thinking has now become the architecture of our truth. We even minimize this existential distress with humor. We make jokes about dying and ghosts because laughter is easier than honesty. We laugh so we don’t look afraid, sharing anxiety about how short life is and how easily we might be forgotten. Fear veiled in faith, grief hushed with jokes. A part of me resists this quiet obedience, as it seems to me that asking “what comes next?” feels deeply human. Wondering what follows the end of existence is just curiosity, and imagining what I think would happen to me after life on the soils of the earth is a necessary rebellion against inherited beliefs because it is my own afterlife. One that is not dictated by any religious boundaries.
And yet, even with this imagination, fear persists. On nights when that familiar anxiety of death creeps in, I try to meet it not as an intruder but as a strange, awkward friend that reminds me that maybe it’s my earnest desire and unguarded yearning to stay. To keep living in a reality where senses are alive, and emotions are loud. Where I am someone who laughs, aches, and loves. Someone who would constantly think of what lies beyond to cradle the truth that life is temporary and create a comfort only I can make.
Perhaps what terrifies us most is not death itself, but the loss of the humble joys of life. Not being able to witness another sunrise, not hearing another story, not tasting another meal that reminds us of home, not feeling the warmth of another embrace. The fear of losing all of these awakens something deep within, as if the mind is overwhelmed by the beauty of being alive. And perhaps that is why fear of death and hunger for life are inseparable. Our dread, in a way, is our longing. It is the mind insisting we pay attention to the miracle of living while we still can.
Whatever waits at the end, I’ll meet it in time. There is no need to run toward it or away from it. Tonight, I inhale the air in my lungs. I feel the pulse beneath my skin. I notice the small miracle of being able to think, worry, and wonder. And maybe, for now, that is enough.
