How can he who has not died speak of death?

Abstract

The author freely reflects on the subject from the pain of farewell to a loved one and from Christian hope. Death can be “lived” as literal death, that of oneself or as the death of a loved one. What does it mean to reflect on death? It is, first, an attempt to postpone it; then, it means asking ourselves about life, whose end is that. Rather than talking about a thanatology, the author suggests talking about a “thanatoeicasía”: a conjecture, an imagining, a presupposition, even a fantasizing about death, and affirms that the meaning of life does not always have to do with what it is expected that there will, or will not be, at death. History is full of people who, in search of the good of others, sacrificed their own lives without trusting in a reward after death ... and even without believing in any afterlife.