We all know that there are difficult moments in life that we all have to endure. A recent example of this was when my brother Caleb and his girlfriend Hannah were driving my car to my grandparents house about a week ago. I was working at the spa when suddenly I got a phone call asking if I had heard what happened. I soon learned that on the way to my grandparents' house, my brother had gone off the road and overcorrected, hitting a guard rail and sending my car rolling down the highway at sixty-five miles per hour. This whole thing was a total shock to me, luckily they are both fine, but my car is a different story. However, this whole situation made me think about what would have happened if I were in their shoes, and what would have happened if they hadn't been so lucky. Similarly, Thomas Gray, the author of “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” writes about how he imagines the lives of people who have died, and then imagines his own and how people will think of him after he dies. In Gary's “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” there are three messages learned about death. Initially, Gray suggests that death is the great equalizer. According to his piece, he makes multiple statements saying that basically whether you are poor or rich, it doesn't change the fact that you will die. “The boast of heraldry, the pageantry of power, and all that beauty, all that never-given wealth, alike await the inevitable hour. The paths of glory lead but to the grave” (Page 668, Lines 33-36). This quote means that, ultimately, there is nothing special about being rich when you are dead. You still end up six feet underground. Fame and fortune don't matter when you're dead, or even when you're alive, even... middle of paper... you have to do all the hard work, because even all the rich people are stubborn and greedy to get their hands dirty and work. In conclusion, Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard" offers multiple suggestions about death. First, Gray points out that death is the great equalizer. This means that no matter what your wealth is, when you die, everyone will be equal and everyone will be put in a six-by-six foot hole in the ground. The second thing Gray says is that everyone dies. While the character in his story is sitting in the churchyard, he realizes that one day he will die, thus underlining that everyone in the world will die sooner or later. Finally, Gray points out that the average population is the heart and soul of any country. This means that, fundamentally, normal, hard-working people make the world go round, because without them nothing would ever get done.