Even when I was a child, I was fascinated by it. I thought about it often and tried to imagine what it would be like to die.

What fascinated me most, I think, and still does, was the inevitability of it, the absolute certainty that one day, at one specific moment in time, I too would have to die. For nothing in life, nothing at all, is as certain, as inevitable, as death.

The reality of death was not a difficult idea for me or for countless children of my country and generation. I am from Poland, and when I was only eight, World War II broke out.

For the next seven years, I lived surrounded by death: the death of family and friends, death from beatings and torture, death from firing squads and bombs; and death on the street, in prisons, and in ghettos and concentration camps.

Even after the war, as I tried to rebuild my life first in a new country and eventually on a new continent, though my sense of ever-present death receded, it never quite left me. It lay like an edge of darkness around everything I did and thought and believed in. How could it be otherwise? I knew that death was real.

Now, of course, as I grow old, the reality of death is ever more present to me. There are times when the “country of death” seems just a step away, on the other side of the lake at which I live, or perhaps behind the next line of trees, or over the next hill.

And because I cannot understand or imagine what it will be like, what kind of reality awaits me there, what will become of me, I, like every other human being who has ever lived, am assailed by fear.

It is the uncertainty, the unknowing, I have come to realize, which is the cause of my greatest fear. Our minds cannot cope with what is beyond their ability to grasp and control. And there is no science or technology which could make our dying easy and its outcome assured.

The only certainty we can have, the only sure hope, is the certainty of faith: of our trust, not in ourselves, but in God.

But such faith and trust are very difficult for most of us to hold onto when we begin to face the mystery of our own inevitable end.

And yet, as I look back on my own life, it seems to me that, however difficult my own path of faith has been and still is, however tormented by fear and doubt, it has led me, in the end, to a place of great hope.

The mystery of death points to a possibility of joy and glory so immense and so infinitely beyond anything we can ever dream of or imagine that it is worth giving up our life for.

And we give it up—we die—not only once, at the end of our earthly existence, but at every moment of our lives. This is our daily death and daily resurrection: our life’s work. This, at least, is what I have come to believe.

In our consciousness, death is most often only a future event, something which happens to us at one precise moment in time—at the end of our earthly lives. And this is clearly true.

The country of death does not exist for us until we arrive at its door. The moment of death is a unique, unavoidable moment in the future. It is the end of our physical existence and of everything that is familiar to us, everything that is accessible to our minds. The country of death is the mysterious, unknown “place” which we enter at the moment of death.

Our death, however, is not only one specific instant at the end of life, but exists and calls to us in every moment of our earthly life. This is the daily death, the death to self, to which Christ called us when he said that if we want to be his disciples, we must deny ourselves and lose our life (Mk 8:34-5).

To deny oneself, to lose one’s life, is to embrace the cross of our daily dying.

The two deaths are not two but one. They are two sides of the same coin, two arms of the same cross. They can never be separated.

We die daily, not only because with each moment we are approaching the end of our earthly existence, but also because each moment we must—we have no choice—let go of everything that has been: all our past, and face a new, unknown reality, a new beginning of time.

Everything around us—nature, the rhythm of our own bodies, each breath we take, each of our fleeting thoughts—tell us that it is so.

To bear fruit, to give life, the seed must fall into the ground and die (Jn 12:24). Without death, there can be no life.

In order to bear fruit and grow into the fullness of life to which we have been called, we must let our poor earthly selves die. We must surrender our lives, not just once, but every day of our lives.

It is only by embracing our “daily deaths” that we can, while still on earth, begin our entrance into eternity and have a glimpse of its glory.

The country of death, in this life or the next, is our door into eternity. There is no other.

In the Christian Tradition, the word “eternity” has two related but distinct meanings. First of all, it means “immortality”—life without end—which has been granted to each one of us when, at the moment of our conception, God breathed his spirit into us and thus “clothed” our mortality with immortality.

Secondly, it signifies “eternal life,” that is, eternity spent in the presence and in union with God, who is, who has always been, and who will be for ever.

It is because we are spiritual beings, because we have souls as well as bodies, that we cannot truly die. Our bodies—at least as we know them on earth—like the whole of physical creation, are subject to death and dissolution. But our souls cannot be dissolved. They may be transformed, sanctified, or, God forbid, depraved, but they cannot be destroyed.

No power on earth, not even the devil himself, can kill us. Immortality has been given to us by God, and only he can take it away from us. And this he will never do.

God does not break his promises or revoke his gifts. We “survive death” and live forever, whether we want to or not.

That is why we need to remind ourselves, again and again, how much is at stake for us as we face the inevitability, not only of the end of our earthly lives, but also of our unavoidable eternity.

That is why we must never forget, not even for a moment, the Good News of our salvation: we do not go to the country of death alone. Christ has entered it and conquered it and made it his kingdom. Risen and glorified, he stands waiting for us at the door.

Adapted for Restoration by the author from her book, The Door of Eternity, with permission from Novalis (2001).