I discovered that I don’t nearly have the fear of death that I once had. What I do have is the terrible awareness of how little time there is to accomplish so many of the things that you want to accomplish. The other thing that seems accentuated, almost to a point of distortion, is the need, the desperate need you have of family, of loved ones. When it appeared possible I might not make it, I didn’t feel so much the awful awareness of, Jesus Christ, it’s going to be me ending the earth. What seemed to me the most predominant in my fears was that it would be the relationships that would end.

Rod Serling (1924-1975) American screenwriter, playwright, television producer, narrator

Audio diary (1975-05)
    (Source)

Recorded comments in the hospital after his first heart attack. In Anne Serling, As I Knew Him: My Dad, Rod Serling (2013).