I Was Afraid to Go Upstairs as a Child...So What About Death?

I was afraid to go upstairs as a child.

I hated living in a two-story house. I envied my friend who lived in a one-story house.

Too much scary television must have done the dirty trick. (Nostalgic shoutout to the 1990s Nickelodeon show, Are You Afraid of the Dark?)

Whenever my mother gave me laundry to take to my upstairs bedroom, I’d put it on the bottom of the staircase where it would accumulate.

One day when my mother wanted me to retrieve something from my bedroom, she knew I was so unnerved by the movie, The Ring (2002), that she outright told me that the villainous girl wasn’t going to come out of the well and get me!

I was terrified to go upstairs alone.

Now, as an adult, I love solitude. I like to "go upstairs" or away to the isolated, lonely corners of places.

I can appreciate Stanley Hudson on The Office saying he wanted to live at the top of a lighthouse (Season 7, Episode 9).

I am reminded of the creeping isolation of adulthood. The daily camaraderie of high school fades to departures for boot camp and college, etc. At the other end of life, a sterling marriage may fade to the loneliness of widowhood in a nursing home.

Maturing in the spiritual life brings its own isolating ascents. There may be goodbyes to friendships and environments that no longer serve us.

But doesn’t the saint look forward to death—to being with the Lord face to face?

Are we being spiritually immature when we fear death, like a child afraid to go upstairs?

Might we someday get to Heaven and laugh at how childish we were to fear coming upstairs?

We won’t know until we, God-willing, get upstairs.

Memento mori.