I remember one day watching the "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" when I was in my very young teens on a relaxing summer day in Pittsburgh. One of the actors, Carlton, was making some kind of joke about death, and for some reason, at that moment I had an epiphany: one day I was going to die.

What a way to bring down a lazy afternoon. I think it was that day that I officially became afraid of death. What's really going to happen when we die? Will our souls really go somewhere? Will we start a new life incarnate as a horse or a fly, or a horsefly perhaps? Or when we die, will it be like the electricity going out late at night in your house -- you're sitting there, watching a good show when BAM. Nothing, but darkness. Obviously my Christian teachings tell about eternal life, but what if in the end that really doesn’t happen after all…of course we may not realize it because we’ll be dead, but --- who does really know? I guess this can be proof for any atheist to see that Christians don’t become Christians only so they don’t have to fear death…

I know - depressing right? Well despite where we end up, some people might be fine with the fact that we do all indeed die someday. I'm sorry but I really think that sucks ---who wants to die? Sure, my life is crazy and a little redundant right now, but I think it's a pretty amazing feeling to simply be alive. I know there are some people that feel the same way, and there are also people who would love to step in front of a moving bus at this very moment, but hey, not everyone can be happy.

I think the fact I don't want to grasp is that anyone at any age is at risk for death. As a young person, I, including my fellow youngsters, usually feel invincible to any danger. Not saying I feel confident to safely jump off a 13-story building and land on my feet (without a splat), but the idea of death is usually kept for your 90-year old grandma who's strapped to a nursing home bed unsure of what planet she's on.

But death hit me pretty hard the other day. I opened up my Grove City College email regretfully to find a message from the college president informing us that junior Sam Durdola had drown over the weekend in Sharon, Pennsylvania. Sam was a great guy - native of Nigeria, sweet to everyone, handsome, virtually indestructible in the eyes of the world.

From Facebook

There were no other details given in the email other than plans for a memorial service on campus in the fall. How awful. I read that in shock, thinking maybe it was some kind of joke and that there'd be a following message in my inbox saying "gotcha!" Unfortunately, it was true and it was real.

I didn't really know how to respond. The only person I lost that was particularly close to me was my grandma, but I was in 3rd grade at the time, and she wasn't a college-aged kid, so it wasn't too shocking. I wasn't even very close with Sam. But we were friends. It’s just almost too hard to believe that he’s really gone.

Sam was a part of my life. He was a living breathing person and now it’s as if he was never here. How incredibly strange. I feel like a little kid when your first fish dies and your parents quickly flush it down the toilet to avoid the realization that the fish is actually dead. Fortunately for a little kid a fish is easily replaceable; however, even though this world is populated with a diverse and rich culture of interesting people, I don’t think any one person can be replaced, Sam included.

I definitely learned from this experience that I don’t necessarily take life for granted, but I’m definitely a lot more careless than I’d like to admit, and I put myself in potentially fatal situations on an everyday basis.

Take driving for example – yes, of course everyone says how dangerous driving is. I drive like a maniac, I’ll absolutely admit. People drive fast all the time. But the reason I drive fast is because I don’t think about the chance that the person in front of me may slam on their brakes, sending my car crashing into theirs and ejecting me from the vehicle into oncoming traffic. Uncommon accident? Not really…I know people die everyday in car accidents…so what’s my problem…?

My problem is I have an expectation on the world to keep me safe. I expect the person in front of me to not slam on their brakes, or the person beside me to not veer into my lane, or for a driver to get out of my way if I’m in a hurry. But the things I didn’t think about before are the consequences I face for when the world does indeed let me down. I can’t put standards on everyone to do what they’re “supposed to” to keep me out of trouble. That’s not their job. It’s my job to protect me. Now of course there are pretty crappy situations sometimes that I simply cannot control…but most of the time, I can make life easier (and safer) if better decisions are made.

Take my drive to work yesterday morning. I was driving on a one-way street in Rosslyn, driving in the far-left lane of the four on the street. I had one car ahead of me and was slowing down to stop at the oncoming red light. To the left of me was a lane for parked cars, and when I got about 8 feet from the car in front of me sitting at the intersection, a giant SUV tries to cut me off and get in front of me, pulling out from the parked car lane. A combination of me not having enough time/space to let him and my annoyance with idiot drivers, I honked my horn to tell him in car language, “hey jerk – don’t even try it.” But he didn’t really care. By the time I was stopped at the light with one car in front of me and the SUV to my left about 5 inches from the side of my car, I looked up to see this incredibly angry man in the SUV shaking his hands and probably saying horribly bad things to me. I did the lady-like thing and ignored him --- I haven’t worked up enough courage to get into a verbal argument with a road-rager.

He kept inching toward me in the lane and I kept inching forward --- I came all this way there was no way in hell I was letting him in. When he got so close to my car that I thought he was about to hit me, I looked up and he was gesturing to me to roll down my window --- fearing a cuss-out and potentially a weapon pointed at me, luckily at that moment the light turned green and I swerved to the right a little bit (almost hitting the person on my other side) to avoid the SUV and sped away. Of course the SUV started following me, and I naturally of course felt like I was going to die. I was afraid because I was getting close to my parking garage and I didn’t want him to follow me in and block my escape or something crazy. Luckily he went straight as I turned off the street to my garage. I parked at the very bottom of the garage and waited for about five minutes in my car to ensure he hadn’t followed me down there. I was fearing my exit from work to come back and see that my tires had been slashed or he was hiding in my back seat. Or perhaps he watched me go into my building so now he’s waiting outside to beat me up. All because my cocky and aggressive driving.

The point of my story is I put myself in that situation. I was thinking only about myself, not giving a hoot about how my driving could affect others around me. I could have hit him, the person in front of me, the person to my right whose lane I veered into, or an innocent pedestrian. Or that guy could have been a complete wacko and could have decided to stalk, hurt, shoot, or murder me. Doesn’t matter if I’m 19 or 91, the world is dangerous, and it’s really creepy to realize that I could indeed die any minute.

So what can I do to avoid this fact? Unfortunately nothing – I’m trying to be okay with the fact that life is short. However, I know that I am a major factor in determining the span of my life. Sure I can’t control the crazy psycho whose life goal is to be a serial killer. But I can try not to tick people off on the highway and slow down, or be healthy to try to avoid illness/injury, or to jumping off high buildings. I have more control than I think, and that control is more mental than anything physical, and it involves controlling my own actions, not the world’s.

I’d like to stay around as long as possible. After all, there’s definitely no one out there that can replace me. ;o)