Oh Life and Death

The concept of death has been haunting me a lot lately and I figured that if I wrote a blog post about it, it would help. So let's see how it goes... A dear friend of mine lost a loved one recently and all I can do is be there for her, because, honestly, I know that whatever I say will not be the right thing.I could trty to say:“It’s understandable”-, but how can I say that? I won’t be able to fully understand her pain so that’s a fail and the phrase: “It’ll get better in time” is also a tough one, because it might not get better, so how can I possibly say that to her. So I pray and try my best…

During the span of the last three years I’ve witnessed the death of six loved ones, family members and friends so I experienced enough sadness to last a while.

Death makes you question everything you thought you knew about the world. I first experienced death when I was only 5-years-old when my great-aunt died. At the time I didn’t know at the time what death meant. I knew that there had to be a certain degree of sadness associated with it, since my whole family was sad about her death, but did know what it MEANT.

I fear death. I think that any person whether you are religious or not fears death to a certain degree. Death scares me, because death seems like the end of existence; of consciousness; of being. I fear the dark emptiness; the sense that my thoughts are feelings will suddenly end.

One day about a year after my grandfather had passed away my paternal grandmother, one of my most loved relatives, started getting hiccups. We didn’t think anything about it at the time. I mean they were just hiccups. Everyone gets hiccups from time to time. But they never stopped. Pretty soon my grandmother couldn’t eat anything without hiccupping. After that she struggled to eat at all.

I was a hard time in my family’s life. A 14-year-old friend of my brother had just been killed in car accident. On the way home from the funeral we got the call that my grandmother had Pancreas cancer. For those of you that don’t know Pancreas cancer is on the most untreatable of cancers, since the pancreas lies below many of the other organs, thus the cancerous tumours cannot be surgically removed. My grandmother was an extremely strong women and to watch her begin to fade way and grow weaker day by day was one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced. It’s been more than a year later now and every so often I end up thinking about her and the amazing life she lived.

A part of me is sad about it and another part of me is really proud that I was privileged enough to have had a grandmother like her. She lived a very amazing life and she helped my become the person I am today. I miss her everyday...

Death affects many people and families, but that is why my parents remind me every day that we have to appreciate our loved one while we can. That is why we have to live life to the full, ‘cause it could end so quickly…

Life is a gift from God- Treat it that way…