petty worries, death & life.

Life is speeding up so much that I find I've no time to read and write as much as I want to. My blog is suffering. Somehow this isn't an isolated phenomenon. Everyone with whom I've been in touch seems to be snowed under their own work. Maybe it's just that time of the year. The time before all the vacations. Maybe that's why life speeds up so much. Though come to think of it, all this rush is probably a way of getting things done before the year ends. Everyone's just trying to show that they've accomplished so much this year. Something to look back on with pride.

I feel so lucky whenever I realise I'm complaining about little things like being busy, and having people try to walk over me. Those are the times I realise that I'm one of the lucky ones. Someone very close to me recently lost her baby. Things that my friends and I mourn about, like jealous co-workers and busy schedules and homesickness and uncaring boyfriends/girlfriends actually seem like things to be counted as blessings. As long as we even notice these little worries it means we have nothing major going wrong in our lives. As long as I can get upset about the Shiv Sena and other communalists it means I have nothing to complain about closer to home.

At first I just couldn't understand what she was going through. It's hard for those without children to understand what it's like to lose a child. Only if you're close to someone who has lost a child will you see and feel a little bit of what they go through everyday. It's bad enough losing the child when it is small. It must be so much worse to lose a child later. A distant relative lost her 20 year old son when I was about 11 or 12. I remember overhearing my parents discussing it. I'll always remember the sound of my mom's voice when she said, "imagine losing him now. Just when she thought all the troublesome years were over. Just when she thought that now they could relax and enjoy life with a grown up child to support them." And she wasn't talking about financial support. All parents come to depend on their kids just as much as kids depend on their parents when they're young. For support, sharing and love. I believe that when a person dies it's the people left behind that suffer the most. I honestly am not scared of dying, but I am scared of dying before my parents and putting them through something like that. No parents deserve that.

Life is so twisted. When you're with people who care, it's easiest being the one who draws the short straw. Who's on his way out. It's easy to tell God to pick you, instead of someone you love. But when you choose to die or flirt with death you have to remember that though you'll be free from this life, you're condemning the people who care about you to misery. When I see people risking their life without reason I want to scream at their selfishness. Sometimes they've gone through a lot of pain themselves and use that as an excuse for their disenchantment with life. I want to tell them it's tougher and braver by far, to choose to live with the pain for the sake of others who love you.

Most of the time you don't get to choose who lives or dies. If you lose someone you love, remember you can't help that person with anything besides prayers. But you can help those left behind. The dead don't need us. The living do.