The mystery of Death - From Life's viewpoint. Like any other mystery, we may not fully understand death but we all need to start coming to grips with it at some point in our lives.
My childhood buddy Lim told me his dad has just passed away in the hospital where they have been fighting to sustain him for several days.
It took me awhile to think about what I should say to Lim; not because I didn't know what to say but because I couldn't straighten out the 'how' of it, since I had trouble formulating my thoughts into words properly because I was shocked and taken aback at the news. In the end, I just kept it straight and simple and told him I was sorry to learn about his dad's passing and I asked if he could cope.
The older I get with the passage of time, the more I hear about the deaths of friends and people I know, like the secondary school classmate who drowned years after we graduated. I didn't keep in touch with him but I knew about it because another classmate from the same class told me so during a class reunion - he became a cop and he happened to be the one who pulled the body out of the water.
The older you get, the more you also get to hear about the deaths of people you know about but who might not have known you; like the super stars, for example. Folks like Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Kurt Cobain, Michael Hutchence, Robin Williams.. The same goes for dictators who were the personifications of evil: People like Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong IL, etc. Regardless of whether if it's by one's one hand or not and irregardless of social standing, no one can be spared from the endpoint of one's life journey - which is death.
I understand the title of this blog post seems diabolical but even so, just because the truth is ugly doesn't make it any less true. I believe in an almighty God and I believe in the spiritual. As such, for me, death of the physical body doesn't equate the death of the soul. Being pronounced clinically dead earns you the death certificate but what happens to your soul and consciousness?
I wonder if the scientific theory that the amount of energy in the universe is a constant and so, energy cannot be created or destroyed but rather, gets transformed to another state applies to the body and the soul. Actually, I do think so. Upon death, the physical body breaks down and either gets transformed to ashes or worm food but what happens to the soul?
Thoughts, feelings and imagination are intangible things but one can never deny their non-tangible existence which affects every aspect of our lives and decision making. I think the same can be said regarding the soul and I don't think they are just products of 'chemical reactions in the brain', even though it's not unreasonable to think that the process of thought involves chemical reactions in our heads, since the intangible is tied to the tangible while we are alive and so, one affects the other.
Ugh damn it, I'm not a biologist, a chemist nor am I a neurologist but suffice it to say, I believe that upon destruction of the tangible, the intangible breaks free from the tangible as well as the physical laws that limit the tangible, which probably explains why the so-called 'spirits' can seemingly defy the laws of Physics by passing through walls and appearing out of thin air and disappearing into thin air and..
Oh nevermind. I wasn't talking out of thin air there though, since I've encountered and seen.. things that my eyes had trouble registering as accepted normalcy and which made my brain scream the word 'impossible'. I really ought to blog about those experiences one of these days.
Whether you believe in the spiritual or not, the point I'm trying to make here is: the increasing cases of deaths you see around you or hear about as time flies by and as you get older and older is a reminder that each of us have to make the most out of the days we have.
Time doesn't wait but death sure as heck waits for everybody. Since such is the case, the trick is to rest when you must but never stall your life to a standstill. If you allow that to happen, then 'death' has come early for you before your time is actually up and you join the ranks of the walking 'dead'. They do exist, drifting through life without purpose, without energy and without aim or meaning.
Let's see now: We spend huge chunks of our lives sleeping, schooling or working, so how much time do we have left to stop and smell the roses, spend time with our loved ones, see the world, learn and excel in the things we've always wanted to learn and do the things that make us not just happy but fulfilled? Why not start now while you still have the time? As long as you still have breath in you, you have the chance.
Let Death remind us about the value of Life and cherish it.
Blessed is the man who can look back on his days while on his deathbed with peace in his heart and fulfillment on his mind. Along with that, I hope to God that when my time is up, it will be painless for me.
