the fear of the the dead and the unknown

Cold frightens me: it is ominous. I breathe it, and deep down it’s as though a knife softly, softly pressed in my bosom and said ‘Don’t be too sure.’ That is the fearful part of having been near death. One knows how easy it is to die. The barriers that are up for everybody else are down for you, and you’ve only to slip through. — Katherine Mansfield, in a letter dated November 17, 1919