Death is final. You don’t die because of cancer, but you die because you were born. Everyone who is born will die,” said my uncle Ranbir. He has been battling five types of cancer, including brain and lung cancer, for the past 12 years.
No one wants to die. “Even when people want to go to heaven, they don’t want to die to get there. Death cleans out the old to make way for the new. No one can escape it.” As harsh as they may sound, but these words by Steve Jobs are undoubtedly true.
How seriously do we really take these words? The one thing that we take most for granted is life itself.
Recently, several of my friends lost their near and dear ones. Death gives you a reality check about life. Sometimes you feel that someone you love dearly, and who has always come through for you, is invincible. They will always be around and you can always reach out to them.
For me, it was my father. He was there for the smallest of things. I became totally dependent on him mostly for love and advice. He had a massive heart attack and survived it. After that he lived for 12 years with a weak heart, but in my eyes and mind, he was strong, and I thought he would live forever. But he didn’t. It took me a while to get over his death. Although I tried looking for him everywhere, all I had left with me were rich memories.
My cousin Shally, Ranbir uncle’s daughter, is struggling at present. Uncle Ranbir was diagnosed with cancer of the gall bladder 12 years ago, and subsequently developed cancer of the pancreas, bone, lungs and brain. Uncle Ranbir was so positive that he would baffle the doctors who started considering his case as a miracle.
I met him three weeks ago in London, and I could not help feeling that he would live forever. Yesterday, he collapsed when his 12th cancerous vertebra shattered. He is now bed ridden. I spoke to him, and he in his positive light-hearted manner said that he intends to come to India in November. Shally confided in me that she couldn’t imagine that her father would die. “Miracles are possible,” she said hopefully. How could I tell her not to take that for granted?
The other day, I visited a friend who recently lost her husband, who was just in his forties. A man who has a regular day at work is, suddenly at the
end of the day, no
more. Especially, since he was young and fit, and whose chances of dropping dead are almost negligent. I felt the weight of death heavy on my shoulders that evening. How unpredictable life is! Those young kids will never see their father, nor hear his voice again. All they have of him are the memories.
Trying not to sound very insensitive, the truth is that we will all be dead sooner or later, to clear the way for the new. There is no escape.
Many find comfort in the theory of rebirth. It’s possible that the theory exists, and I am not refuting it, as I too feel comforted by it. It’s a belief and some religions know it to be true. However, even in the next life, we don’t remember the previous one that we lived. Life is now and what we have. Let’s make wonderful memories for people to remember us by when we are gone.
“Live for the moment,” Shri Shri Ravi Shankar says.