Fleeting, Flickering

How often does an average human think about death?

To wonder about when and how it will come, inevitably. To ponder about whether things like souls, heaven, hell or reincarnation exist. To worry about whether in your absence would the world be any different, even in the slightest. And finally, to realise how very much alive we are in the present, and many other discoveries that would haunt you for a long time before life pulls you back into its distracting frenzy and makes you forget about how very insignificant and temporary our existence is in this grand scheme of the universe and time.

These past three days as I sat among tables of relatives both close and distant watching my cousins perform funeral rituals at my uncle's funeral, I've been thinking about death. One of the first things I do after arriving at a funeral is to go and spend a few minutes looking at the deceased lying in his coffin. It's a little difficult for many to approach the coffin and look down into that glass window upon the face of someone whom they've seen moving around, talking, breathing and being very much alive. As you gaze upon his face, you start to think about how he'd never open those eyes again, and become conscious of his absence from this world, from now on. And then you find that there's this queer lump forming in your throat, because the reality that he has already departed and can no longer be in contact in any way possible starts to sink in rather painfully.

I watched as the faces of family members, nephews, nieces, grandchildren become contorted with grief, and become overwhelmed with sorrow and loss. The face that affected me most of all was my grandmother. For which mother would want to see her own son depart before she does? To see her own flesh and blood grow from a crying infant into a fully grown man with his own family until his shrivelled, sickly state on his deathbed?

Death is a subject that chills me to the core. It seems so final, and relentless. It feels like a great, heavy door that shuts tightly between those left behind on this world and those who have departed. It's even more unsettling that no one knows or even has a vague clue about what is beyond that door - we only have our assumptions. Some day too, my turn would come where my life would be extinguished quietly, and all that would be left is nothing more but a shell.