Lets Talk About Death

One may very well ask ? Why?? Why talk of death at all??  Isn’t it something that is unpleasant, formidable, terrifying??  Something that makes the heart beat faster in uneasiness and fear?  Why talk about something that does not soothe the senses?  That does not lull us with a sense of security?  Well?I’d say, lets talk about death simply because I’m tired of running from the endless fear that surrounds it.  So, will talking about it dispel the fear? Maybe. Maybe not.  But I’m not going to drop dead (pardon the pun) for want of trying. 

Has death ever touched you in some way?? Have you looked at death closely and looked away because you didn’t like what you saw?? Have you touched someone you loved and found them to be cold and lifeless instead of warm and vibrant?  Have you wondered what it is to close your eyes and never wake up?  Worse, have you had nightmares of someone close to you dying and then woken up in a cold sweat and never slept again that night? 

Many of us have seen death in the eyes of the living who are about to die.  My first brush with death occurred  when a nephew who was 12 years old died of cancer after suffering for one full agonizing year.  We watched helplessly as a young and lively boy slowly wasted away in front of our eyes. There was nothing anyone could do. Prayers, faith, hope and desperation, all intermingled with a pain so deep that it just wouldn’t go away.  Most of us identified with the father who threw away every religious relic from his house and locked himself in his room to mourn the death of his young son. The mother drew some kind of inexplicable strength from the very source that had taken her son away, namely God. And I continue to marvel at the faith of this woman who could have easily turned away from God but didn’t.  Time is a great healer I’ve heard, but thirteen years after his death, the pain still lingers in their eyes along with a kind of dull acceptance.

I can still remember my last goodbye to their son – this warm and vibrant child whom I had hugged and laughed with, many times in the past.  As I stood next to his body and touched him in farewell, I was shocked by the sensation of cold hardness under my hand. Is this what death ‘felt’ like?  I walked closer to him and this time placed my hand on his chest and looked into his lovable face and I could hear his words clearly in my ears..?words, which he had spoken to me just a month earlier.  His parents had taken him to London for treatment and there he had visited Madam Tussauds and taken a video of all those life-like statues?.and when I went to visit him on his return, he had shown me the video and explained ? “Aunty Shaly you wont believe it, they look so life-like but they are all made of wax”.  At that moment, standing next to his lifeless body, in that cold and impersonal morgue, the same sweet voice and words rang unmistakably in my ears.  It was as if he was telling me ? please don’t cry, its not me here, its just my wax statue. 

I stumbled out into the blinding sunlight and cried my heart out that day, for that little boy whom I would see no more, for those parents who would never stop hurting and for the fear that death spared no one, not even an innocent child. I desperately longed to feel hardened by what I experienced that day, but instead I became all the more vulnerable to the power of death.  Death has crossed my paths a few times after that, when I lost a couple of close family members and loving friends and each time I have felt nothing but despair, helplessness and a gripping fear. 

I know death comes knocking around all our doors many times and I’m sure there’s no one who has felt anything but defenseless in its power.  Sometimes we see death on street corners and hastily look away, sometimes we feel it lurking over our shoulders testing our courage, sometimes it comes in the guise of an illness and takes vice-like hold over our lives, sometimes it laughs in our faces tauntingly and walks away – only to return at a later date, sometimes you can hear its footsteps behind you as you run away from danger, sometimes you can hear it in the screeching of brakes and sometimes in the ticking of a clock.  If, at one place, it eagerly incinerates, at another time and place, it stealthily envelops, and sadly sometimes, in the hopelessness of life itself, it becomes an all-consuming need that annihilates itself.  But always and until the end of time, death is and will always remain shrouded in mystery.  An unsolved and enigmatic one at that.

There’s no one out there who can safely say ? “Death does not scare me.” The one, who believes there’s eternal life after death, is also fearful of the unknown. Even those who suffer and want to end their lives may have felt that last yearning to cling on to this life.  Never to feel the warmth of the sun again? Never to see the blue expanse of the sky? Never to hear the joyous chirping of birds?  Never to touch the warmth of another living being? Never to hear your child’s laughter? Never to get wet in the rain? Never to hear the roar of the waves crashing on the rocks? No one wants that.  And, if there’s one thing that is more frightening than your own death, than in all probability, it is the death of a loved one. And in this, I think, lies the power and respect that death unerringly commands. 

I believe this ‘fear’ of death is crucial to life and is what keeps our feet firmly on the ground.  The realization that one day we have to cross that threshold and never come back.  There on that threshold we will see ourselves finally in the bigger picture and not just as ME, MYSELF and I.  Our colossal egos that fed ravenously on the props of beauty, brains, status, talent, money, power and superiority will transform pitiably into an insignificant mound of dust or ashes.  This is where the paraphernalia we collected during our lifetime will fall and disappear as it relentlessly hits the ground.  First to go undoubtedly will be our pride and I’m sure it will fall with the biggest ‘clang’.  Then will fall the medals of our greed, self-indulgence and arrogance – ‘clang’ ‘clang’ ‘clang’- all the worldly trappings we have collected over the years will be stripped off us by death, until we stand completely bereft of everything.

Will we be given time? Time to assimilate our thoughts? Time to say sorry? Time to say goodbye? Time to look back? Time for remorse? Where will we be taken? Who will take us? Will we find seasons there? A morning, noon and night?  Will there be pain and joy and sorrow?  Will we meet our long dead family members and friends?  Will we be able to see the one’s we have left behind?  Will we be allowed to alleviate their sorrow in some way?  Will we be liberated? Finally, will we meet God?

There are answers written in the holy books, preached in the churches, temples and synagogues but as long as there is life, the questions remain. By this line of questioning, are we being unfaithful to our respective faiths and ingrained beliefs?  Are we questioning the unquestionable? Because no one has ever come back to tell the tale, are we certifying that death is the end of our existence on earth?  Which leaves us with the biggest question of all times ?

When we die, do we finally conquer death or does death finally and completely conquer us??

Author: Shaly Pereira- Oman