Death — Is it really the end?

for as long as i can remember, the concept of death has terrified me. the idea of a living, breathing human being just ceasing to function on a regular day is still incredibly unfathomable to me. and yet, death is just a very subtle yet significant part of our day to day lives. all of us are just one miscalculated judgment of depth, perhaps, away from death, yet how is it that we miraculously survive each collision that “almost happens” every time we look at our phone notifications while crossing the street, and exactly why is it that innocent little kids pass away as a result of some deeply troubled individual deciding to open fire on a school? is it fate? or is it some cruel higher power at work, simply tossing chess pieces off of the board regardless of whether or not they were conquered? am i implying that some individuals deserve death more than others? certainly not. i believe what we deserve, what we reap, comes to each of us eventually, and death plays no part in this whatsoever. it is not the reward for our kindnesses nor is it the punishment for our sins. what i am so disgruntled about, is how unexpected death really is. who decides when a person or a being is to die, and on what basis? because there is no logic in this world, or lack thereof, that can convince me that the grim reaper exercising anarchy upon us is in any manner a fair doing.

you’re giving final exams one day, and suddenly, you have to go visit this one woman who has been with you since the moment you were born and is almost akin to your own mother. she’s sick, the doctors say. in the true nature of a wide-eyed child, you pay no heed to it and assume she is going to be okay, because that is how it should be, right? she will recover and you will live happily forever after. and then, one day, you are told she is no more. how do you stop the once wide eyes from filling with tears? how does one live with this knowledge? that someone you once loved with your entire heart and being, never having imagined a universe in which they did not exist, would be so cruelly ripped away from you? what do you do with the immensely profound yet imposter-like grief that you do not think you deserve to feel when you’re told you had a twin sibling who passed away at birth? how do you begin to process it, let alone build a life around this knowledge that brings you to your knees on a random Tuesday night?

it always has surprised me when people grow around their grief and the immense sadness that once consumed every waking minute of their day. i never thought i would be able to, either. it fills me with a reluctant sense of hope. i say reluctant because as much as one hopes to get better, there is a certain sense of unsettling comfort in suffering. a peace, of sorts, that does not really feel right. the tantrum-throwing child within me screams, “how can you forget and barely think about someone you miss so much, who you once cried so much for that you almost lost your voice?!” i respond, “but maybe that is indeed how it always ends. you heal from and grow into the things a part of you never wants to abandon. almost as if it thinks the pain is life’s sadistic way of rewarding you.” so…you grow. you miss them, think about them on birthdays, death anniversaries, and other little moments. but eventually, on a cozy, warmly lit october night, you realise that you did end up getting over that one thing that you never thought you would get over. and you do not know whether to be scared or happy about that, because it almost feels like a betrayal to the person you are mourning.

growth and progress is certainly something to be proud of and will forever be something i advocate. however, regardless of how distant i grow emotionally as well as physically, in time, to that one event that broke me, i wish to let it be known that i will never be able to understand how mind boggling of a concept death really is. you, as a person, are just supposed to accept that the people you love will one day cease to exist and, as a result, will lose all memory of the time that you shared together and the memory of the times that were true to them, as an individual. until it is only you that is left with the memories on this earth, carrying on even when you do not want to, waiting for death to gently wrap its arms around you and whisk you away into the unknown, until there is no evidence that the two of you ever really existed and lived whole, meaningful lives, apart from the occasional physical artifact that a future archaeologist will go on to unearth. this still terrifies me. always has, always will. is there an afterlife? does reincarnation really exist? maybe death is not something we can ever understand, as indignant as we might be about this mortal failure of ours. and perhaps death is not the end— it is merely the beginning of love. and that very fact is what makes our time on this earth so special — the realisation that no one has the power to bring our feelings, our emotions, or our experiences back from the dead. once death is imminent, it is all gone…almost like it never existed. so why not make the most of it? we only get to live once, after all :)

Tvisha Chhabria: I write about events in my life, things that move me, or social issues I hold dear. I have recently submitted one of my pieces titled “The immortality of being human” which is going to be published in Elysian Literary Magazine. I hope this piece speaks to you as much as it does to me.

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