On Death & Dying

I saw my first death yesterday. I was visiting a relative at a local hospital that deals with patients suffering from heart problems. This person i saw was close to dying (suffering from a cardiac arrest) when i visited and died whilst i was there. It wasn't a pretty sight, that anyone whose seen a person dying can testify to. Relatives crying and hugging the now dead body intoning it to come back. Other people leaning on each other for support, calling those who're weren't present with a numbness that was heartbreaking to look at. I guess whoever that old man was (because it was a very old man) he was very much loved.

However, this wasn't why i write this article i.e. to describe the death of a person. I write because at that moment i was wondering about the people who have forgotten that someday they too shall have to pass through that hidden veil and go off into another world. You can tell who these people are too. They're the money grubbing people, who lie, cheat, adulterate for a few more extra bucks. They're the people who're the kingpins, the thieves, the murderers who wrongly take what is not theirs.

What i thought at that moment was, why? Why bother with accumulating billions of dollars wrongly when they won't be with you when you leave. Why bother killing innocent souls, waging war or whatever evils that are there in our society, when at the end of the day, you too have to face a greater being out there. This is the lesson that some people forget and then fall into a cycle of no return.

I was studying Islam the other day. Something in there really made an impact on me. The Quran (the Holy Book of Muslims) keeps intoning its followers to keep remembering that they have to die one day and meet their Allah. The Quran does this because it keeps vices in check. It was exactly the same thing i was thinking at the time i saw the man die.

I also thought of something else whilst i was there. Will the 'man' even exist say in the next 50 years or so? I wonder if someone has thought about their existence in this manner. Say you're a man, happy, great family, with a beautiful wife, amazing kids and for some reason you die. What will happen? Your family will mourn you for a while, but they'll get over it. Your wife will miss you but after a few years, maybe she'll find someone else or will get busy in something else and you will become another memory. To your kids, you'll be missed, but only as if you were a dream and as they grow up, you'll become just another name. In 50 years time, there will be no one left who'll remember you except as a name to those closest ones or if you have done something really outstanding history will remember you for a few years and then that too shall pass. It will be as if you never existed. The biggest names like 'Einstein', 'Aristotle', 'Freud' are meaningless to the majority of the world's population. What standing does yours or mine have and no intones like 'I will remember you forever' has any meaning in this show we call life. Nothing is forever. Nothing.

At the end of it all, the only things that you have with you are the good deeds that you have done in this world. Nothing more....and rest assured there is another world out there and there is a creator present. Life is too full of too many 'coincidences' to imagine that everything is random and everything is to chance.

Live life, love it. You only live once. Don't be afraid of dying, be afraid of living but be afraid of doing evil. Who knows what death might someday bring?