My Battery is Low and It's Getting Dark

I am not into "space stuff" as much as I'd like to be. Yet, the recent ending of the last of the two Mars rovers, Opportunity, was something that pulled me in and transfixed me.

The Spirit and the Opportunity were to only last about 90 days (in Mars' days), but the last one survived for about 15 years. And the last message received from it--I have heard different things as to whether these were the exact words--was "My battery is low and it's getting dark." That sentence has touched many people. I think it has to do with how we all sense our end will be. Maybe the very end of our lives has that two-step process. A nebulous sign of ending and then a less-nebulous sign of ending.

And then, as the great religions teach, maybe another dimension of existence. I tend to agree with what Vladimir Nabokov said, "Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be a greater one."

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