The Inexorable Circle of Life and Death

I lost a loved one due to Covid a few months ago. This is what I hope I remembered before, during and after.

This article has been in the works for a long time. Over the last few months, I have not been able to write. I have not been able to focus much on anything. I lost someone precious to me in the pandemic and it made me look at life and the world around me with a different perspective.

My country (India), and probably the world recently faced its biggest crisis in a very long time. It was bad out there. Until recently, the whole country was completely filled with anger and anxiety. Many still cant help deal with a strong feeling of helplessness. I don’t know of a single family, who did not loose someone during the second wave of the pandemic. India, due to the sheer size of its population and the relative weaker health care system was brought upon its knees and its citizens were slaughtered in hordes by the virus.

However, now that the wave is behind us and we have had some time to deal with it, it is time to reflect back and make amends.

As a result of much introspection, there are a few things that I now understand which I wish I realised earlier. These are essential things that most of us know, however, in the daily commotions of our lives, we forget them all too often.

I loved and adored her. She was such a wonderful person. Ever since I was a kid, I really admired her.

My biggest regret is that I never expressed these emotions in even just the above words. I don't think I ever told her that. I was so lucky to have her in my life and yet she never knew how lucky she made me, how lucky she made my whole family and all those around her.

I just wish that somewhere through her busy life and mine, I had found those 2 minutes to tell her this.

I know that it wouldn't have changed what happened. The virus would have still found its way to her and my family would still have this tragedy to deal with.

However, if I had told her, maybe, just maybe, I could have made her life a little happier. Maybe, she would have had one more reason to smile and another good memory. She deserved it and by not making this effort, I have robbed us both of the opportunity.

Too often in life, we go about on autopilot, leaving these conversations for the future. Sometimes, we have them, sometimes we don't. Don’t make this mistake. Give yourself the wonderful opportunity to tell your loved ones what they mean to you. We often take them for granted and just don’t understand their true value in our lives until it is too late. Don’t do this. If we are all just more conscious of the true value of the people in our lives and are a little more vocal about it, maybe, in the end, we would not just be spreading happiness to those around us but also to the soul within.

It is probably the biggest mystery of our universe. What is death?

Is it a journey to the heavens for eternal pleasure?

Is it the start of a new life, in a new body, in a new part of the universe?

Is it an eternal loop of creation and destruction through the multiverse?

Or is the worst possible thing — absolutely nothing?

No one really knows, until one day, when our time comes, everyone discovers it.

When you lose a loved one, you often spend hours, maybe even days at a stretch just wondering about this mystery. And here is the thing — there is no way that you would discover it. It will always be a mystery. Billions, have felt this way and billions will feel this way in the future. And this mystery creates a sense of helplessness.

It took me a while to understand that some mysteries cannot and probably need not be solved. We have to just accept their consequences and deal with it. We cannot let ourselves become a slave to this helplessness but instead have to focus on the world and the people left behind. Because, it is only together that we can find any resemblance of happiness again after such tragedies.

In the autopilot of our lives, we often end up pursuing the mundane.

Worse still, many people are living the lives of others. Meaning, we become what the world around us wants us to become and not what we want to be ourselves.

Being aware of our own mortality is a great incentive to truly live our own lives on our own terms, doing what we want to be doing. Every single moment of our life is precious because one day, it will be over. One day, we would be left playing catchup for time and invariably, our time will end.

In light of this uncertainty, the only sensible thing to do is to truly live. But then, how many of us truly live? Even if we’re living, are we truly alive? Remember your own mortality but find the courage to be alive.

What Covid and the devastation in its wake has once again reminded me is that we and our world’s are very fragile. This is not the last black swan event of our lifetimes. There will be more and each one of us will have to face the consequences.

In the midst of all this, it is more important than ever to spend whatever limited time that we have seeking what truly matters to us.

Death is penultimate. No one ever has evaded it and no one ever would evade it. It is the common fate that we share and it should not be a source of anxiety, sorrow or pain. Instead, it should be the reason why we live our lives to the fullest at every step of the way.

I wish that each one of us finds the strength to do what makes us feel alive.

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