The realization that life is finite
Reflections on a perfect day that I’ll never get back
I remember so vividly what I would describe as the “perfect day.”
It was 2017 and I was working in the city of Sikasso in Mali, West Africa. I was only going to be there for a few weeks before heading back to Senegal, where I was living at the time. My colleagues and I always joked about work trips to Sikasso, because there was never much to do there. One weekend, though, my co-worker asked if I wanted to visit a waterfall.
So Saturday morning, three of my co-workers and I crammed into a taxi and rode the long, bumpy path to the waterfall. We rode on dusty streets, passing busy markets, baobab trees, and goats. I hopped out to buy a pair of flip-flops from a street vendor, laughing back and forth with him as I negotiated the price. “Bien fait,” said Amadou, our driver. In the car, my friend Clinton posed the question to us all, “What’s the weirdest thing you guys have ever eaten?” which sparked some amusing responses and hilarious stories told.
As we approached the forest, the car started making some weird noises, but we figured it was ok. We got out and started our trek, winding through the humid forest filled with the sounds of insects and birds. I spotted a saba (saba senegalensis) fruit in the trees, which I picked off the branch and cracked open to enjoy the sweet and sour taste of the yellow pulp bursting in my mouth. It was one of my favorite treats in West Africa, so it was an especially pleasant surprise to find one in the forest.
Not before long, we reached a clearing, and before us stood the mighty waterfall. Despite the brown-tinted water, we ran right in. We made our way to behind the falling water, pressing our backs against the stone wall as we watched with wet faces the water crash down in front of our eyes. Being surrounded by a wall of sound that muted the outside world was completely exhilarating. My friends and I exchanged glances, conveying the sense of awe and excitement we felt as we stood in what seemed like our own little world.
After spending some time at the waterfall and drying off on some nearby rocks, we headed back to the taxi. When Amadou turned the key, it took a couple of tries before the engine roared to life and we were on our way.
After about twenty minutes of driving, the car started screeching and sputtering and suddenly came to an abrupt halt. Amadou started cursing to himself in Bambara as he tried to get the engine to start. We all got out and tried to give the car a push with no luck. Eventually, we accepted that we were stranded.
Something I’ve appreciated in African culture (based on the countries where I’ve lived at least) is that when someone has a problem, it’s a community ordeal. I remember one time in Senegal, I was in a taxi headed to an ecolodge with a couple of friends. We were driving slowly through a town when all of a sudden, we heard a bump and the car came to a stop. The taxi driver had accidentally hit a pedestrian… It wasn’t a bad hit by any means, but he was hit nonetheless, and fortunately not injured. At that moment, a whole crowd gathered around us and the taxi driver got out and started speaking to them in Wolof. He told us to continue on without him, and he called us another taxi. He ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in that town, gathering with the community and making sure the man was ok.
So there we were, stranded on the side of the street in Mali with Amadou (you really have to give taxi drivers in West Africa a lot of credit for all the craziness they deal with, largely due to the dilapidated state of their vehicles). Not surprisingly, right away a man noticed the situation and came over to offer help. He had been heading to a village about a half mile away. Within the next 20 minutes, after multiple people helped get the car to start with no luck, we were being led to the village.
At the edge of the village were a couple of stores: a “boutique” (little walk-up store that sells everything from bags of rice to phone credit) and a casual dining area. Amadou walked up to the kitchen and began ordering lunch for himself. I was surprised how nonchalantly he was going about things, taking his time to have lunch when we still weren’t sure we’d make it back to Sikasso that night. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and joined him, ordering plates of rice and beef stew with Beaufort beers.
Hours passed and the sun began to set, and my friends and I continued chatting while Amadou and a few of the villagers were working on the car. We were in a discussion with some of the people from the village about the ethics of having multiple wives, when we heard a loud honk coming from the street. We looked over and Amadou was beaming. The car was fixed (at least for the time being).
On the car ride back to Sikasso, I looked out the window and watched the sunset, savoring the peaceful landscape and the peace that came with knowing we would make it back that night. I reflected on what a full day it had been, not just in the events that unfolded, but in how I felt. Excitement, adventure, and connection permeated every moment and I felt a weird sense of nostalgia knowing that the day was about to end, and that it was a day that I’d treasure for a long time.
I don’t know the next time I’ll find myself in West Africa, or eating a saba fruit off the tree. I don’t know the next time I’ll be standing behind a waterfall, feeling immensely powerful yet small and humbled. I also don’t know the next time I’ll see Amadou or any of the friends from that day who made it a day I’ll never forget; friends who are now spread out around the world, living our separate lives on different continents.
I think a lot of the time when we’re living our lives, we’re not necessarily thinking “this may be the last time I ever ___,” which is probably a good thing to some extent. When I plan trips, I say to myself, “I’ll go here this time, and there next time,” as if that next time is guaranteed. When I hug my parents goodbye, I say “see you soon,” expecting that I’ll see them again, probably for the next holiday or celebration. But the truth is that the actual number of times we experience anything (in this physical body) is finite — whether it’s driving through the countryside or chatting with a stranger or hugging a loved one.
My Zen teacher once said, “You should honor your relationships. Any time you say goodbye to someone, you should do it with the distinct possibility that you may never see them again.”
His words hit me hard, because I’ve had people close to me die unexpectedly, and I know I’m not the only one. This idea can be expanded to every experience in our lives, though, because we actually never know when it might be our last.
While it can seem morbid, keeping in mind that our time here is finite has been a valuable lesson for me. Whether I’m experiencing love, joy, or anger, remembering that nothing lasts feels like a gentle push to cherish every moment and every person, and never let a negative feeling linger too long.
Here is a quote from Paul Bowles (via nitch.com) that sums up the feeling of a finite life:
“Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well. Yet everything happens a certain number of times, and a very small number, really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that’s so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more. Perhaps not even. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.” -Paul Bowles
