IT HAUNTS and it leaves us hollow. It’s mischievous and capricious. Death is a trickster.
The sudden loss of a loved one propels all these questions. Questions which we don’t have satisfactory answers to, just fragments of conciliatory thoughts and self-made reasons to hopefully appease our grieving souls.
Fate had always been unpredictable, and often cruel. Death, though inevitable, is a phenomenon which we don’t unhesitatingly yield to. And it’s especially difficult when it strikes the young and healthy. We have somehow ascribed death to favor only the aged and the weak. But death, being the trickster that is, unfortunately doesn’t play with rules. Much as we like to roundhouse kick death’s sinister face and tell it to come back when we’re ready, things are just not played out like that. When it’s one’s time, it will be his or her time, no matter how heart-wrenching this is for us.
The sudden loss of a loved one propels all these questions. Questions which we don’t have satisfactory answers to, just fragments of conciliatory thoughts and self-made reasons to hopefully appease our grieving souls.
Fate had always been unpredictable, and often cruel. Death, though inevitable, is a phenomenon which we don’t unhesitatingly yield to. And it’s especially difficult when it strikes the young and healthy. We have somehow ascribed death to favor only the aged and the weak. But death, being the trickster that is, unfortunately doesn’t play with rules. Much as we like to roundhouse kick death’s sinister face and tell it to come back when we’re ready, things are just not played out like that. When it’s one’s time, it will be his or her time, no matter how heart-wrenching this is for us.
News of this dear friend’s very sudden demise came as a shock to everyone. Someone so young and healthy, someone so full of life—it just didn’t seem right. It just isn’t that easy to accept. Isn’t life supposed to be lived out to the fullest? That we should have ample years to make the most of it? Enough years to live out our dreams; enough years for screwing up, getting back on track; mess up once again, fix our lives for good and spend the rest being wholly contented.
The ill fortune of death is like a punch to the guts. It makes us realize yet again that we are here on borrowed time, that no amount of human will can stop what destiny has clandestinely or deliberately planned out for us. So we start to re-evaluate the whole intricate points, junctures, probabilities, chances and what-haves and what-nots—all these in the attempt to re-live life. We begin to give more focus on things that we once took for granted. We put value to everything, even to those which we didn’t give second thoughts to before. As cliché puts it; it’s like seeing the green grass for the first time, smelling the flowers all over again, petting a kitty and knowing what fur actually feels, letting something spicy burn our tongue and not regretting ever doing it. All of a sudden, we want to hug everybody, say thank you to all these people who have somehow shaped our lives, forgive those who wished us harm and ill.
We are confronted with the reality that we cannot dictate our fortune, though how obsessively we try to plan out our lives, there’s no stopping what fate has in store for us. We may start questioning our very existence. There’s always the conscious choice of the Omnipotent, or this theory of predestination, where others get to have eternal salvation earlier than most as a result of the elaborate interaction of multiple unforeseen forces. Whatever and however deities, forces and conscious choices work, we are brought to this fundamental principle that to wake up every morning should be a reason to celebrate and every breath a reason to be thankful.
It’s just unfortunate that we only get to be reminded of these only when challenged by the ill fortune of death.
The ill fortune of death is like a punch to the guts. It makes us realize yet again that we are here on borrowed time, that no amount of human will can stop what destiny has clandestinely or deliberately planned out for us. So we start to re-evaluate the whole intricate points, junctures, probabilities, chances and what-haves and what-nots—all these in the attempt to re-live life. We begin to give more focus on things that we once took for granted. We put value to everything, even to those which we didn’t give second thoughts to before. As cliché puts it; it’s like seeing the green grass for the first time, smelling the flowers all over again, petting a kitty and knowing what fur actually feels, letting something spicy burn our tongue and not regretting ever doing it. All of a sudden, we want to hug everybody, say thank you to all these people who have somehow shaped our lives, forgive those who wished us harm and ill.
We are confronted with the reality that we cannot dictate our fortune, though how obsessively we try to plan out our lives, there’s no stopping what fate has in store for us. We may start questioning our very existence. There’s always the conscious choice of the Omnipotent, or this theory of predestination, where others get to have eternal salvation earlier than most as a result of the elaborate interaction of multiple unforeseen forces. Whatever and however deities, forces and conscious choices work, we are brought to this fundamental principle that to wake up every morning should be a reason to celebrate and every breath a reason to be thankful.
It’s just unfortunate that we only get to be reminded of these only when challenged by the ill fortune of death.