The Beginning, The End, and all that In Between by sethbernard87

The epic story of LOST has come to a close. For the past year, this ending was heavy on my mind, as well as the millions of other avid LOST fans around the world. And for all others, our obsession for this show seemed almost comical that we would invest such energy at attempting to dissect each weeks story line. Through polar bears, time-travel, others, other others, and bright yellow lights, the show filtered out only the truest of fans. And it was these fans who grew deeply saddened once the calender hit 2010, because we knew this was the year LOST would justify or smash our long held theories about where our characters were. However, some people, including myself, were nervous for this ending. Would the show leave me disappointed? Will it answer every question I have? But after thinking about The End for a good 12 hours now, I am able to say that I am completely satisfied with the ending. And for those who have not watched it yet, spoilers ahead.

Some may already have their own theories as to what the ending meant. Mine may be pretty straight forward and obvious, and I hope it is. Because reading what some "avid" LOST fans have written regarding "wasting 6 years of their lives", they may not understand what the writers meant by this story. My theory:

"Everyone dies sooner or later, kiddo...some died before you, some long after." This line spoken by Christian Shepard was the line which made everything come together for me. The alternate-reality which we have been watching all season was not Purgatory. Purgatory implies that LOST is a Catholic show, however, given the window pain in the Church at the end of the episode shows that many faiths were used in this ending. Now, I am not a big fan of religion trying to pop its head out from the cracks to show us a hidden message, and this was not that. This was simply death, and the place that one goes afterwards, be it Christianity, Buddhism, or even Evolutionism.

This side-ways reality was just the place in which one goes after death, before they are able to move on. This place could last 10, 100, or even 1,000,000 years. But for the viewer, that might be hard to understand because in that place, there is no time - no "here and now" as Jack's dad says. Being so used to a schedule and time as we are, it's hard to fathom that time does not exist, and that what we were seeing of as 'time' in this "flash-sideways alt-reality" was not as we know time.

For example, the line "some died before you, some long after" tells us that even though most of our main characters have met back up with each other around the same time in this flash-sideways, some have been in this place long before others. The dialogue between Hurley and Ben outside the church prove this, when Hurley says to Ben, "You were a great number 2", in which Ben replies, "And you were a great number 1." Meaning, Hurley and Ben went on to protect the island, maybe even for a thousand years, before someone replaced Hurley and Ben just as they replaced Jacob and Richard.

And that's what's great about this ending. In the story of Star Wars, George Lucas gives us characters, and a limited back-story of these characters, and the places in which these characters go, and then an ending. However, this was not the ending to Luke Skywalker or Han Solo, nor was it the complete story throughout. Fans went on to create an entire Universe that dwarfed George Lucas' original storyline. And we can only imagine what happened to Hurley as he watched over the Island. We can only imagine the adventure of those who came afterwards and found the mysteries that our characters had found. And we can only imagine what happened to Sawyer, Kate, Lapidus, Miles, and Richard once the Ajira plane left the island. Upon seeing Jack at the concert in the alt-reality, Kate begins crying and tells him how much she has missed him. She has been without Jack the rest of her life because she may have lived to be 80 years old. But once she died, she was sent to this place between life and "moving on."

Once each character realized their previous life, their existence and subsequent death, they began to cry with joy. This was because they realized where they were, because they remembered they were dead, and happy that they could finally move on. Some characters were not so lucky. Ana Lucia, as Desmond tells Hurley, was "not ready". Neither was Daniel Faraday or Charlotte. They did not have this realization that our other characters experienced, just a sense of deja-vu that they wrote off as just that.

Our story of these people we have come to know so well has now come full circle. A full circle that, for some was written, and for some, not. As I said, the story of Hurley protecting the Island is there, but it is up to each viewer to imagine what happened. Some want to call this a "cop-out", and that the writers didn't know what else to do, but I completely disagree. For the past 6 years, the greatest show on television has captivated millions, just as epic story tellers like George Lucas have done. The writers of LOST have now created a universe that will be imagined over for years. This is not The End for LOST.