A very somber but thought provoking post.
It is said that society is built on the illusion that we will never die. It does seem that way for a long time until our own ageing face in the mirror forces us to face the the truth of the matter. No one escape death and as you say we dont choose when or where it is our time to go.
I am sorry to hear about your friend and my thoughts go out to you.
I also lost a best friend three years ago on Christmas Eve. I was seriously ill in hospital myself at the time. I was even thinking about him when I head the news. I had promised myself that when I got better I would make the effort to spend more time with him. We had somehow gradually drifted apart and when I became ill I realised that he meant a lot to me. My wife came in to visit me and told me he had died of a heart attack in the night. The pain of hear that news was terrible and I am not ashamed to say that I cried for hours. It took me months to get well again but I still miss my old friend more than ever. He looked and acted very much like the old actor Orson Wells, He was so full of life I could not accept that the world could function without him.
Life and death seems so unfair. Unnatural. We are given this great gift of consciousness for a short time and then it is taken away-
I will not get religious on you as I know religion is a person thing but I will say this- I have cheated death 3 times in my life. At 14 I died of an asthma attack and my heart was restarted. At 37 I barely survived a car accident. A huge lorry crashed into the back of me and four other cars killing one driver, seriously injuring 3 others with one left in a wheel chair for life. I myself woke in the hospital missing a kneecap and a back injury. I had to learn to walk again and it was hard work. And three years ago I contracted a serious life threatening virus and was flown to hospital by helicopter. It took a year to recover. So I guess I have looked death in the eye and survived it. But what I wanted to tell was that on each occasion when I faced death, something special happened. At first I felt fear. Surely it was the fear of dying. But then a calmness came over me. My whole body felt like it was being bathed in warm water and then it came. The wonderful sensation that I was going home. To my real home. A home where I was going to receive the best welcome anyone could ever have. I do not want to die just yet, nor for a long time. I feel I have so much more to live and to give. But all I am saying is I do not fear death anymore. I do not know if there is a God but I feel certain that when this life is over it is not the end and where we go from there is a wonderful place.
Best wished to you my good fellow.