Is Death a Curse or a Blessing?
I do not believe many people enjoy thinking or talking about death. It is not a subject that most people would like to discuss in a pleasant and beautiful way, is it?
Lately, I have been thinking a lot about death and how it might come to me and my loved ones.
My friend’s passing came as a shock to me, and there is a good reason for that. Every time I visited India, I would go to his house to meet and spend some time together, but during my last visit, I could not see him.
He video-called me after I returned to the UK, as he was coming back from a hospital appointment. I did not know his condition was severe, and I never imagined that would be our last conversation.
Before I could recover from that shock, I lost my aunt. Within a week of being admitted to the hospital, her condition worsened, and she passed away. The news was incredibly shocking, and it felt like for the past three weeks, I was constantly being bombarded with sad news about the passing of my loved ones.
What makes this even sadder is that my mum had asked me to call my aunt to check on her since she was unwell. I was busy at the time and said I would do it later, but now that time will never come. My aunt loved talking. One of the reasons I did not call her was that she never wanted to hang up the phone, and she just loved to chat. When my mum asked me to call, I was busy, so I thought I could do it later, but things did not go as planned.
I have been thinking a lot about the things that happened in our family and the role my aunt played in my life and in her own life. She was a headteacher at a local school in Kerala, India, and she was quite active in politics. As a busy person, she had many responsibilities and worked hard.
It is true that we will all leave this world one day, and that is indeed sad. But, on the other hand, I think it is a blessing!
Look at ourselves and the lives around us. Yes, we are alive, but does that make us truly happy moment by moment? Well, are we ever happy in the first place?
I am a nurse working in care homes in the UK. I often see the daily struggles of people with old age, and some of them lose their cognitive abilities, leading to confusion and worries. Sometimes when some residents pass away, I think that it is a blessing for them because their quality of life had worsened, yet they were living for many years.
I know a lady whose life was a constant struggle. She had a horrific relationship with her abusive husband, and later, her son began to mentally and physically torture her. She persevered until she experienced major accidents.
Sometimes, when you hear about someone who has been struggling passing away, you feel a sense of relief, as if they have just been freed from worldly stress.
I think the sleep we get in death must be second to none.
Each night we go to sleep, thinking about tomorrow. Some nights, our sleep is disturbed as our plans for the next day cause unstoppable adrenaline or sometimes worries keep some of us awake.
But sleep in death is different. There are no stresses and no worries.
I understand that the passing of our loved ones is sad, but looking from a different perspective, they are just at peace now.
They no longer have any worries because they have become one with nothingness, and in this nothingness lies everything.
