Many people believe that when we die our lives flash before our eyes. If that’s true, I hope it flashes backward.

A linear replaying would be nice, but reruns bore me. It would be way better to see everything in reverse order to offer a new perspective.

It would also be more efficient. Flashes are inherently quick so maximizing every millisecond matters. Just the lead-in time alone makes a reverse-order flashback the better choice.

Having your life flash before your eyes would be jarring and probably take a few frames to process.

I’d recognize the people and places I’ve just seen far quicker than the world as it existed when I was baby.

And for the memories missed while processing that I’m having my life’s final flashback, I’d much rather miss the memories I just made than the memories I’ve forgotten.

I don’t just wish this for myself but for everyone. Life is difficult enough the first time we experience it; reliving it backward might help ease tortured or unsettled souls.

As flashbacks progress those unfortunate enough to have been imprisoned move towards freedom and the innocence we all once held.

Lives destroyed by war see their countries come together again and dissolve to neighbors mumbling angrily at each other (a far better alternative).

Rather than reliving experiences as they happened, trauma victims land in the world they knew before it all fell apart.

The weights added to our shoulders as we age instead fall off improving our posture and lightening our souls.

Even our worst romantic relationships end with the wonderment that started our attraction instead of with the alimony that broke it beyond repair.

Deaths become rebirths.

Rather than reliving our most painful losses, we’ll find ourselves standing over the graves of the people we love most then partying with everyone else who ever loved them and eventually welcoming them back into the world – just as we remember them.

Family pets will live out weird Benjamin Button lives that leave us with the memory of puppy kisses yet to come instead of abandoned leashes hanging sadly by the back door.

The more our flashbacks progress, the more filled with wonder we’ll become seeing life through decreasingly jaded eyes; rediscovering it’s beauty.

Our final scenes, at least for me, will be of being placed gently by a doctor back into a womb and slowly dissolving into nothing while listening to our families discuss their hopes and dreams for the life we’ve already lived.

That just sounds beautiful. It’s a way better ending than the progressive flashback that simply catches us back up to the fact that we’re dying.

Series finales are supposed to be the hardest television episodes to write. It would be nice to know that the universe has a template that gives most of us a satisfying ending.

Truthfully, I’ll be pretty upset if my life doesn’t flash before my eyes when I die. I’ll mostly be upset that I’ve lost the opportunity to complain about it.

If death is only blackness there’ll be no one left to hear it. If I go to heaven, I won’t want to start off on the wrong foot. Nobody likes a whiner, especially in heaven.

And if I go to hell, there will probably be a few things higher on my complaints list: like the fact that I’m in hell.

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