11 years Ma

 Death.

She comes as natural as life, if not more.

She is the omega that gives life’s peregrination a value, an appreciation, an esteem.

If she does not come, eternal life would be fearful, treacherous, evil and boring.

 

The credits roll. I read the names out loud.

They are the contributors, the ones responsible for the story of our lives.

They appear throughout our stories but we see them only in the end.

 

Mortality stares at us but we cannot actively engage in `tough and taboo’ conversations openly so we cannot confront it.

We see the negative, the dark and the grief that envelope our minds.

It is our perceptions preached, taught and bestowed upon through the ages until we believe in it so completely there is no room for light.

The avoidance of explicitly communicating the one sure event in our lives, have rendered us utterly unprepared for it.

 

There are a range of resources to help grievers explore and express their stories while connecting with those of others to help them feel less alone.

Why would I want to feel less alone, Ma?

They avoid aloneness the way they avoid death, like that is possible.

People are in the process of dying the moment they are born. Some just take more time.

 

In the grand tapestry of existence, we come into this world alone and shall depart the same way.

To find solace in one’s own company is a skill that surpasses that of many.

 

I am present ma, in life or in death.

There is a difference between `not being dead’ and `being alive’

I am alive, present and happy

I would be dead, present and happy when I die.

 

We are raised to compartmentalize and schedule grief into annual religious and spiritual rituals and wishes.

I don’t need this day to remember grief or loss.

I carry you with me on a daily basis, and though it isn’t about grief anymore, I flinch when I remember that Valentines Day you left us.

 

There is a permanence in death that cannot be accepted by the human race. So, they invent stories of heavenly abodes to cushion our grief and to give us hope that this is not the end and we would meet our loved ones when it is our turn to leave.

Humans have become so unintelligent that they have to be caressed with false hopes, religion and company.

Whatever freedom and intelligence we have won over centuries, we have lost it now. Our cages are smaller with too much discrimination, racism, sexism and humans, too much humans.

 

Why does it dehumanize a person if she sees the need for death and an apocalypse?

What extolment can we give life if our existence trouble others?  

What human values do we talk of procuring when longevity is an obsession even with those who are ill, poor and dependent.

 

What real living are we honouring if we cannot accept death as a conclusion?

 

You are gone ma.

I have accepted that.

I don’t even want to light your lamp anymore, for I see no value in that.

I have lived 48 years of my life with you. If I am not grateful for that, I can never be for anything else.

11 years now, ma.

No one lives forever but you will live in my thoughts, in my being, in my writings as long as my epilogue isn’t written.