Saturday, December 27, 2008

What is Death

When I see a young girl’s photograph in the obituary section in a newspaper , I look into her eyes.. The eyes of a young girl..full of life , thrill and excitement … the eyes that were unaware of the fact that soon their bearer may no longer exist .. She’ll be gone forever and everything will be over …
The very thought of Death sprang out streams of tears from my eyes . What worried me was ..what would happen if one day I just wouldn’t wake up again . The loss of separation is too much for me . I also sometimes think … who will miss me when I die . People will remember and pay tribute for few days or maybe weeks and then forget me forever . They’ll “move on…” . The sun will shine again …the birds will chirp again …daisies will still be the beautiful white . Nothing will change. This thought was enough to break me down. I used to shudder to think of the day that would come one day. I would think of something else to rejoice .
One day , I was reading Chicken soup. There was a story about a little girl . The story read that this little girl had a very close friend . This friend would play with her every weekend . Soon it was known that her friend had developed a deadly sickness ( I think it was cancer …) . The little girl was unaware of this . And her parents were reluctant to tell her . They kept delaying the time when they would have to tell her . Her friend started growing weaker and weaker with each passing weekend . She would stop coming to play . And the girl’s parents would cover u for her . One weekend when she didn’t come , the girl’s mother came to talk to her. In a pool of tears , she told her what was wrong . The girl was quiet ..not crying ..not smiling . Then she said “mom I knew it” . Her mom was very shocked . The girl continued “when she got to know about her sickness , she told me . Everytime she came around , we used to discuss this”. Her mother tried to comfort her but the girl added “She wants to go to heaven soon so that her pain recedes . And Mom shes not going anywhere ..shes only going to Heaven .”
The end of the story is predictable but what is special about this story is the way the girl took things . And this is what I had forgot . Shakespeare said “This worlds a stage and we are mere players”. If we enter the stage .. we have to exit as well . And Death is inevitable.
Who knows whether Heaven or Hell really exists after death …but it do exists during the course of life. Our deeds counts. If today we do something unjustified we will pay for it much before our journey to Hell . And if we want people to remember us and “call us” in need …we have to make the batteries of our life efficient.
Death will then …not be an end ..but another beginning .