Death

The only thing more devastating than death itself is eternal life. Well, we haven’t seen examples of the latter lately.

Or have we?

Death is always surprising.

Any sort of death.

Even impending death.

But then again, that’s life after all, a promising euphemism for the phrase ‘impending death.’ 

Death is painful. Untimely death is unimaginably so. But then again, how’s death not untimely?

Death is untimely.

It is what defines death.

A voice inside us whispers, I will live long. It is a voice of hope, bordering delusion, and it smothers the voice of reason which bellows, Nothing’s permanent dude, life’s great, but death will be here, anytime now.

We so easily cling ourselves to the sheen of the possibility of life, to the wobbly promises of our heart, that we fail to accept that death does not differentiate, it comes for every one of us, any one of us.

All our lives in the back of our minds, we keep bartering with destiny (God), we pray to live long and then die peacefully, and even if we were to die unexpectedly, we plead to make it less painful for us and our loved ones.

So much for logic.

We don’t accept the fact that we are a sitting on top of our respective ticking bombs, with different timers. And we’re all going to die, sooner or later, in ways we can’t fiddle with.

And sometimes when we brood about it, it feels so depressing. Its not, but our fragility makes us see this fact from such a lowly perspective, and we’re so terrified, we compartmentalize it and any thought of it and tuck it away in some deep closet in our minds.
Our worst mistake.

All our lives we are scared of that yawning void, that endless abyss, that we might trip and fall into.

The unflinching constant.

The invisible fundamental.

The only truth if there ever was one.

And we take life for granted.

We learn to sail through the caprices and brace for the challenges. But we fail to live the moments. As we always have an objective, a will o’ the wisp, at every stage of our lives, which derails us from our reason of being here, to live, to imbibe these memories and moments.

Life becomes a tick-box regime. Desires, objectives rule here, mechanical dreams, delusionary safe havens of basic minimums. 

But the irony is that, we endear ourselves to this life (and our dear ones) so much, that we find it so difficult to accept the sheerness of death. The unbearability is astounding

The only thing that is more devastating is suicide. Probably the most devastating thing there is.

Its beyond my imagination how excruciating it is for the one who commits it. How shocking it is for the person’s kin and friends and acquaintances.
Suicide the utmost form of denial to a way out of the mire.

The mire of your sorrows, regrets, the vortex of your memories, the ashes of your failed dreams.

I honestly don’t know what goes inside the person’s head. That he actually deliberates upon this, actually plans this.

Of course, there are no brownie points for guessing that the person isn’t stable, he needs help, he has no will power, no thought of his family, he is a big big fool.
Right. Absolutely.

He needs to speak out.
Yes. Totally.

But in a very subtle manner, we shrug off our responsibility and obligation towards him.

Not every person actually speaks out, oh but he screams in other ways, we unfortunately fail to see sometimes. There are many such junctures. 

And suicide is an agglomeration of such junctures.

And oft times even before looking at his circumstances, we start branding him.
Mad! Stupid! Callous! No heed of family!
That’s understandable, in our rage we do this. But this rage is partly directed towards us, our inability to prevent a suicide.
We sympathise, we understand.

But we don’t empathise, we don’t feel.
The circumstances, the shame, the pressures, the conundrums.
No. We don’t delve that deep.
Human mind. Emotions. Our actions. Our fancies. It’s complex. It’s not something to be taken lightly. And certainly, no one or no action of this sort should be branded whimsically and prematurely.

Nothing is sadder than someone fiddling with the death timer he sits on top of.

Death comes for all of us. 

Lets not wrestle with that.

Neither the fact. Nor it’s manner.