Death as a companion and a moral compass!

Image credit: Heute

I was heartbroken when Diogo Jota passed away in a car crash. Not just because he was a Liverpool player, but it brought back memories of a dear friend who passed away in a car crash in 2018. It still haunts me for some reason. And I often wonder how fragile life is. One moment, someone is full of life, and the next moment, they are just not there! Post 2018, I have tried to look at life and death differently. I feel like once you come to the understanding of how fragile our life is, we start to look at life and, more importantly, death differently. We see people die around us, and we realize that death can embrace us, too. No one wants to die; people want to be alive even in their graves! But death is inevitable.

I have started to see “Death” as someone who is around you, sometimes to your right, sometimes to your left. Maybe see death as your companion that lives and travels with you. It is with you all the time, but decides its own time and space to embrace you. When death decides to embrace you, it is game over. And death has proved many times that it is just around you. Someone goes for a walk, a tree falls, and they are no more. Someone sits on a bench, and a car crashes into them. Metaphorically, it is death hugging that person. Death is beside you all the time; it watches you day and night. Not that you should fear death, but understand that life is a temporary experience, and its permanence is less than death. Death is with us even when we are alive, but once death touches you, everything else becomes inaccessible. That is the beauty of death. You don’t have to worry about the morning meeting at work that you dread. You don’t have to worry about what other people think about your imperfections. When you are not there, everything associated with you ceases to exist. So, you like it or death is a constant companion. If we see death as a companion, when it comes to the time for people to move out from here, it feels like a natural process rather than something like a lightning strike, something just out of the blue. That will still hurt, but you might just cope with it better.

Death is not just a companion but also can serve as a “Moral compass” or a guide to lead a better life. We take certain things for granted or fail to act on some things because we feel we will live forever. Most people think of death as something that happens to others, and somehow they are immune to it. As a result, a simple apology has to wait till the next day, a dream has to wait for another day, a thank you gets postponed, and many other things perpetually get postponed or just buried. Would you do that if you knew you had finite time and energy? When in a tough situation or when you are against the wall, try this. Just ask yourself, “If my companion Death were to embrace me now, what would I do?” Wouldn’t you hug a friend as if it were your last? Wouldn’t you reach out to your crush and say, “Hey, I kind of had a crush on you in college.” Wouldn’t you reconcile with your parents, who are not happy with your career choice? Wouldn’t you bring an intensity and passion in whatever you do that is just magical? Wouldn’t you want to have the best interactions with whoever you meet? And meet them as if it were your last interaction. Wouldn’t you, more importantly, live life in the present as you understand that there is no future and no past, just the present is all you have.

Also, often in life, we lose our way somewhere and look for something to get back on track or find another route. We look up for the North Star or look for a compass. I find no better compass in life’s journey than death. Death is not something you avoid or fight with; death is something you live with! Death co-exists with life; it is not separate or independent of life.