It is so sudden when death beckons you unexpectedly. No goodbyes. No farewells. No reconciliations.
The ending is so finite. The finiteness is probably what makes it so difficult to come to terms with for those who are left behind.
It’s rather convenient to believe that there is nothing thereafter. No lingering, no coming back, no awakenings in a different form or realm. To leave once and for all. To leave behind no entanglements.
When someone held both my hands and shared excitedly about meeting a mutual friend, I did not think that would be last time I would see her so happy and so full of life. When I held my cat in my lap one night, I didn’t know it would be the last time, I would be holding it. When someone bid goodbye to his two-year-old, he never thought that was his last moment with his child.
When the news of these deaths reached me one after the other in the past few weeks, I couldn’t help but ponder the inevitable ending. There is no certainty about a life that you saw today to be alive tomorrow. It wrenches me to imagine my young human motherless. Yet, we go forward thinking nothing untoward would happen. Our little heart can sometimes hold only so much that it fails to pulsate. Blame it on lifestyle, food and stress, it all boils down to how we deal with life and its tribulations. There is no perfect way, rather a way that we forge for ourselves by keeping ourselves at the centre, and probably by loving ourselves and forgiving ourselves a little more than we are often conditioned to.
Death is not something that I haven't thought of. It is something that I have often been reminded of. I would attribute this to being a learner of literature as there are so many works that linger on the ephemerality of human life. Unlike other subjects that seldom philosophize, literature compels one to ponder and ruminate life and death a lot. It humbles you. It reminds one how insignificant is the drama that goes on in one's mind. I used to think I was prepared for any kind of challenge that life might throw at me. I realized how pathetic and weak I was when my father was unwell twice in the past two years. No grit and strength prepare you to see one's loved one battle for his or her life. The helplessness is what baffles me. The helplessness that forces me to trust absolute strangers whose services we seek for healing our loved ones. My experience with medical fraternity is such that I have a tough time trusting a doctor. We live at a time when everything is commercialized. Not all doctors. But some do not follow the ethics of their profession. Even remembering those days of ordeal brings a shudder through me.
A lot of people reached out to me during this time. Some understood the pain as they have had similar experience. Some sympathized when they saw me struggle. Some offered words of consolation as a courtesy. I do not expect everyone to get it. I am unfortunately someone who struggle to offer words of solace or offer condolences when others go through a misfortune. I just don't know what to say. I used to think my words wouldn't make any difference. But when I was going through this phase, I realized sometimes these words of consolation eased me. People can heal each other. Simple gestures can mean a lot to someone even in such situations. When someone says they get it, it feels lighter. I have tried since then to put an effort to console others in similar situations. Though I am absolutely inefficient in most scenarios, I try.
When I saw my colleague's photo on her memorial posters, I couldn't help but think that she had no idea this photograph was to be used for this purpose. She looked so happy and alive in those photos. One never knows which would be the last photo or the one that was to be used for such a purpose. As an outsider, the impact of this death is bearable for me. The hurt lessens as time passes. But the grief for the near and dear ones would seldom go away. One of the hardest adversities that humans have to deal with is definitely the loss of their loved ones. Nothing is as hard as losing someone that we loved. Yet, one has to survive this, somehow bear this, and try not to lose oneself in this ordeal. This is probably how our lives are: fragile, fleeting and totally beyond our control!
PS: This was in my draft for a long time. I don't know why I didn't post it when I had written it. I am still hesitant. Yet, here it is.
