I Died for My--

“I died for beauty”, she said.[1]

I didn’t know how to respond, uncomfortably staring at my feet, hoping she would soon change the subject. We were six feet below though, so I couldn’t escape her questioning glance, as moss slowly covered her lips.

“And you?”

“For my…beliefs.” I was not confident, my voice bearing witness. The statement was empty and I knew it; something seemed superficial. Could there have possibly been more? “Belief in—

“I for truth,” I heard a man reply.

“What is truth?” I asked, inquiring his doctri—

“Did you not die for truth?”

Truth.

It was then I realized the fatal error to which I had fallen prey. I died for belief, not truth. Therein lay the disconnect I had felt deep in my bones before the conversation began. I had not lived for truth, and thus could never have died for it.

“I died… I believed… I believe…

…in myself.”

I wept.


[1] Emily Dickinson, “I Died for Beauty”