What is the first thing that comes to mind when you see or hear the word..

[Lady Freedom]

Death.

It is a poll thing for Death And Dying class. And this is the only place I can get a mix of emotions and ideas. To many young Christians on campus to get a good mix.

[Calliope]

1. be not proud

(I was an English major)

[rug]

2. Silence.

[Dangerously Amused]

3. Transition.

[Haole Girl]

4. I thought about my husband's cousin who died yesterday. n/t

[petronius]

5. Fear (of)...

[speedoo]

6. Death is inevitable.

So have a full life, and be kind to as many people as possible.

[Lady Freedom]

7. keep them coming!!

The answers so far are great!! But, please keep going!!

[WritingIsMyReligion]

8. "Hold my beer!"

Seriously, though, it's probably more like...."Whoops."

:D

[WannaBeGrumpy]

9. Pain!

:cry:

[bertha katzenengel]

10. nothing

There is nothing after death. I don't fear it, but I do want it to wait a long time.

[NewWaveChick1981]

11. Finality.

To me, death is the final state. A being that once was is now no more. :(

[China_cat]

12. Coming too soon

[Fox Mulder]

13. The end.

[Chan790]

14. re-absorption into the collective soul. n/m

[LostinVA]

15. The battlefield after Agincourt in Branagh's "Henry V"

For real.

[Glorfindel]

36. where is thy sting?

o grave, where is thy victory?

[Lady Freedom]

16. kick

[Mz Pip]

17. Oblivion

Finality. Unknown. Emptiness.

And perhaps for some: Relief

Mz Pip
:dem:

[driver8]

18. Sadness.

[MadMaddie]

19. Unexpected...

[Tikki]

20. No longer responsive to stimuli.....n/t

[hsher]

21. A medieval drawing of the Grim Reaper, and...

Calm.

I'm not afraid of death at all. I'm Jewish but I believe in reincarnation. IMHO, nothing to fear. It's graduation then you meet with your guides and friends, review your most recent life, take notes, and choose another baby body and come back again. Next life is your next class.

[Arugula Latte]

22. Two words: "Final" and "Nothingness." nt

[skygazer]

23. Monty Python

Specifically, the Grim Reaper from The Meaning of Life. But that's probably just me (and possibly Oeditpus Rex).

[hsher]

25. But I didn't eat the mousse

[Lady Freedom]

24. kick

[Lady Freedom]

26. and again

[Lady Freedom]

33. the kick

[helderheid]

27. loss

[robbedvoter]

28. "Merry meet and merry part/until we merry meet again"

Hopefully, my last words...

[rockymountaindem]

29. Absolutely nothing

I don't know if it's because I don't have a definition for death, or because so many things were trying to rush to my mind that they all got jammed up and nothing made it.

But when you think of it, death can be so many things, from an outright tragedy to a release from pain. Who's to say? When I think of my own death, though, I'm reminded of the words of a dying Rabbi of ancient times to his students, "Do not mourn for me, because as one door closes another door opens!"

[two gun sid]

30. Rest.

[sarge43]

31. A bridge, one we all must cross n/t

[wildhorses]

32. Elysium

[wildhorses]

48. too late for edit....added link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium

here is a portion of the text--

Elysium in post-classical literature

Elysium in Saint SeiyaElysium was a pagan expression that passed into the usage of the Christian patristic writers as a synonym for paradise.

Some confuse Dante's idea of the Elysian Fields with Limbo—he described Limbo as the very upper level of hell, a place of peace that the unbaptized and the non-believers who lived virtuous lives go. It is a place of happiness, but it is closed off from God and thus remains as hell.

In the Renaissance, the heroic population of the Elysian Fields tended to outshine its formerly dreary pagan reputation; the Elysian Fields borrowed some of the bright allure of paradise. In Paris, the Champs-Élysées retain their name of the Elysian Fields, first applied in the late 16th century to a formerly rural outlier beyond the formal parterre gardens behind the royal French palace of the Tuileries.

After the Renaissance, as images of Valhalla entered the popular European imagination, an even cheerier Elysium evolved for some poets. Sometimes it is imagined as a place where heroes have continued their interests from their lives. Others suppose it is a location filled with feasting, sport, song; Joy is the "daughter of Elysium" in Friedrich Schiller's ode "To Joy".

When in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night shipwrecked Viola is told "This is Illyria, lady.", "And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium." is her answer: "Elysium" for her and her first Elizabethan hearers simply means Paradise. Similarly, in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, Elysium is mentioned in Act II during Papagino's solo while he describes what it would be like if he had his dream girl: "Des Lebens als Weiser mich freun, Und wie im Elysium sein." ("Enjoy life as a wiseman, And feel like I'm in Elysium.")

The New Orleans neighborhood of the Elysian Fields in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is ironically the declassé purgatory where Blanche Dubois lives with Stanley and Stella Kowalski. New Orleans' Elysian Fields provide the second act setting of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine.

In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Elysian Undying Lands, the home of the gods, elves, and a select few others, can only be reached by crossing the western sea, much as one would have to cross the stream of Oceanus to reach the Fortunate Isles.

Elysium in Christianity
The extracanonical Apocalypse of Peter explicitly links Elysium and Heaven:

Then will I give unto my chosen and righteous the washing and the salvation for which they have sought me, in the field of Acherusa, which is called Aneslasleja or Elysium.

[Bullwinkle925]

34. Peace.

[bridgit]

35. life's great reward...

[Nicole]

37. Funeral n/t

[gordontron]

38. a graveyard nt

[Kali]

39. Part of the cycle. Can't have new life without death.

[Shine]

40. It's the most natural thing in the world.

but then, I'm a Hospice Volunteer Visitor, so there you have it. :D

:hi:

[lettre de cachet]

41. Grim Reaper

with a scythe was the image that immediately popped into my head.

[HughBeaumont]

42. The Florida death metal band . ..

. . . who's leader is, unfortunately, dead.

[windlight]

43. DEATH

As in Discworld books.

[kwassa]

44. Dias de las Muertas!

[Deep13]

45. Not much. The word itself says it all.

The end of the road. Pretty much it.

[likesmountains 52]

46. darkness

[cwydro]

47. sad

[otherlander]

49. Three things, actually:

1. A walking skeleton

2. Emily Dickinson, because a lot of her poems are about death.

3. Airplanes- It's kind of weird, because I don't know anyone who's died because of an airplane, but I still associate them with death. They can crash and kill the passengers, or hit buildings and kill the people inside, or drop bombs on people, or drop people into oceans...

[Broken_Hero]

50. loss....that comes to mind nt