One of my close friends is in a home hospice due to metastatic colon cancer. Unfortunately, diagnosed too late. Despite COVID, I took a flight to go and see him. I was fortunate to spend some quality time with him (we were up till 4 AM for two days). There were many private talks, a lot of private messages for friends he is not in contact with. Together, we laughed browsing Facebook & Whatsapp memes, feel dejected on Pakistani physicians soulless politics, listened to Rafi Sahab songs, and searched girls we knew in college days. We drank a lot of chai made almost every couple of hours by his wife and puffed cigarettes.
I realized the impending death of a known person is a powerful force for introspection. It makes you let go of many things, forgive many people, and look for forgiveness. He was happy to see me as we both were hard-headed at one point in our lives. We had arguments, and friendship has its ups and downs. When I was leaving, he said a beautiful thing with his usual smile;
"Bhai, maut bhi aik rasm hi hai jo har insaan ko bilakhir nibhani paRti hai". (Death is also a ritual every human has to go through)
The year 2020, on the bright side, bring a lot of humility for me. I guess it made me relatively more humble and a feel-blessed human being. The return flight was somber. The flight was empty. I didn't even read the book. I quietly sipped some cold water. I am glad I skipped the mindless presidential debate.
2 comments:
Please have a look on my blog Oct 29, 2018
Life must end in death
I copy your comment/post here - so we keep a copy
Yes I understand the topic is somewhat philosophical so forgive me for that
At my age this question tends to crop up a bit more frequently as if at younger age death does not occur as commonly. The fact is that death is "written' down as soon as life is begun (in the mother's womb that is)
So it is sort of part of life (end of life) One of my friends said
mawt kitni haseen haqiqat hay
umr bher jis ka intizar kia
In short, we wait for death for our whole life. There is no escape from this reality. Some say at the time of death your whole life passes in front of your glance in a few seconds. To me this has been happening frequently except that not the whole life but many events keep raising their heads in my memory box from time to time, Some of them I jot down under this blog and others I ignore.
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