Mysteries of death

The most mysterious and the most unavoidable occurrence is obviously death. Where everyone will agree on the unavoidable bit, some might disagree with me on the mysterious front. So I thought a few months ago until I heard of a bizarre incidence. Let me make it clear in the starting that the mystery is not in “how he/she died”. With advancements in bio technology these days, one gets to know the cause of death very easily. What really beats my head is the reason. “Why did he/she die”.

I was sitting with a close friend in his cabin and he shared his horrifying experience which happened in his hospital a few days ago. He is no doctor but he got an assistant kind of a job at a super specialty hospital as a psychologist. The hospital is still relatively new so he was lucky enough to be having his own room.

“Did you read about the death of the renowned heart doctor in the newspapers.” He asked me.
“No” I said. “I tend to miss the inner pieces of the paper. You see I am all about the headlines and the front page” I said jokingly.

“Well than I am sure you remember the surd who was with us the last time you came. He died.”

“What?”, “How? When? What the fuck he was such a nice guy” I paused. “What happened? And how easily you say this. Like no big shit.”

“If you were in my head right, you would have been suffocated to death. That is how much I have thought about it since it happened. The words HE DIED is all there is in my brain. Maybe that’s why I say it so easily. “

“What happened?” I asked again.

He stood up and went to the nearby window. He said “3 days ago everything was normal. I had just finished my lunch and returned to this room. There was a fellow, about 40, who was having some pains for about a week. He had a mild heart attack a day prior to that. The case had become serious so we had to put him in the ICU. He was a middle aged guy so you know they would not take it normally. It is always easier for old people to swallow the fact that they are major shit. They know its all nearing the finish line anyways. So this guy would behave a bit crazy and act restless every time the doctor would tell him the results of ECG, his heart condition and the blockages in his arteries. That is where I come in. My job was to calm him down a bit, discuss and share with him. You know the regular.

So after lunch was summoned to the first floor ICU as a regular check up was to be done. The reports did not have much improvement. How would they? We were just keeping him in case of an emergency. Nothing could improve. Just cheap ways for the hospital to make money I think. Our ace heart doctor was also called for the same. He hadn’t arrived when I reached. I was talking to him about his situation and telling him that just needs to take precautions and he would live as long as he wanted. I had never seen such desire to live on anyone’s face like his. But will get to that later. We heard somebody coming. Had to be the doctor. He walked in very slowly and took a rather small step. Then made a funny noise, his knees started to bend a little. He was trying to take support of the slab but his hands fell free. He dropped all his documents and simply crumbled. I am explaining it in details but it all happened rather quickly. We rushed to him. Thankfully we were in the ICU so all the equipments were available. The other doctor checked his pulse, it was gone. He wasn’t moving a millimeter. The shocks were made ready to pump his heart. That also didn’t work. Everyone was rushing here and there to do something about it but the truth was that nothing could be done. He was dead. He literally just dropped dead. It was actually as easy as me saying he died. For forty minutes we kept on trying stuff but nothing. He was than officially declared dead but the doctor. He died virtually on his patient’s feet who was struggling to keep his own life. Never had I experience such an awkward silence in my life. All of us were surrounding the body which looked like it will get up any second. “

There was a long silence as he stopped talking. I was still grasping the whole incident and I think he had the scene in front of his eyes.

“Maybe it was meant to be. He was just destined for this tragedy.” I said. Instantly I realized, we all just say the same thing when we can’t reason things out and make ourselves ok with it. But in this case these words stood just fine.

“That is not how it was suppose to be. 35 years old heart doctor. He was already amazing at his work. He had two kids who were 2 and 4. A young wife. I bet when he left his home this morning he didn’t this was going to happen. We checked his file and he had absolutely no heart related problems man, nothing. His wife was informed and rushed to the hospital. The body was now on the bed of the ICU. I cannot explain you his wife’s behavior. Screaming, howling, asking questions, crying. She is still with us. She fainted and was admitted here. We are helping her in “recovery” so to say. Huh .. bullshit.”

"Why the fuck would this happen?" he screamed. "Who is to account for his death and the misery that comes to the young boys and his family? You say there is a reason for everything so please be kind enough to explain. Life seems so hunky dory it can end any fucking second with no fault of yours. Its just so threatening above anything else."

I felt he was not only bugged with what had happened but also what all was following that terrible tragedy. I realized if I was feeling so bitter in my heart than how must he be feeling. Above all, can you imagine the horror of the doctor’s colleagues who had lunch with him that day. Imagine you share a meal with a fellow doc and 5 minutes later you get the news that he is dead. I closed my eyes and it felt like the world is slowly getting swallowed. I was drifting in all the directions and everything is just so futile. I mean anyone of us can just be plugged out of life anytime. Literally. What is the point of all this nonsense. Cars, houses, business, relations, what good are they? Me, you or yours can die with just a blink of an eye. Click, and we are gone. Makes you want to kill yourself. At least you are aware of it happening.

“Each day that you are living is the day you have said no to god.”  I sort of announced it. Just came out of me.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“I read this sometime ago. It explains that in reality, god comes to you everyday to take you with him. And you say ‘no’ because you want to live. Meaning you have an option to die any day you want, you just choose otherwise. I think it was an attempt to explain these mysterious deaths which have no reasons. It explained that we are in this prison and god offers a sanctuary every day. He wants us to come to him but we just say no because we are trapped in all these worldly matters. The materialistic things have taken over our hearts completely. Since there is no escaping them, we choose to escape death for that time only.”

“So you are saying that people who die like this have accepted death where they had an opportunity to decline it. That is stupid, why would anyone do that? I would never do that. Would you do that?” he asked.

“No. Not now at least. Am quite terrified by the thought of death just like everyone else. I am actually most terrified of those few moments before death you know. When you are aware that you are going to die and nothing can be done about it. You know it’s coming any second now but you just can’t avoid it.  I don’t know what I would be thinking that time. Friends? Family? Regrets of life, I don’t know. I also wonder if i would be craving for life at that time. Would a point come in our lives where i would happily welcome death? "

He did not respond to that.

I left soon after that. There was a void between us that time and nothing was said. The whole incidence had so many faces. If you think of the family it is just pure tragedy and at the same time it was such a demonstration of the only reality in this world. The size of death is just so huge, it can swallow anyone anytime. No rhyme or reason. It feels like a message from god you know. He is telling us – watch what you do coz I can pull you up any time I want and there will be no intimations.

It is things like these that makes me want to do more. Give a lot more to this world. I might not see the light of tomorrow and I don’t want to die as just a nice person who was a great brother or a husband or a father. I want my death to count for something. People live their whole lives not contributing so much as a second to this world. When they die, its mulled over for a few days and then life carries on. Nobody remembers them because they never cared to contribute towards the society and the humankind. They never cared for this world which gave them everything they ever wanted. People spent their entire lives chasing things and not appreciating them. From cars to bigger cards, from houses to bigger houses, money, property, everything they aspire. It is when they truly appreciate, they will realize the generosities of this world and maybe than they will try to give something back to it.

For past 50 years we have been reading works of Einstein, past 400 years we have been enjoying works of Shakespeare, almost 500 years to Da Vinci’s death and we are still hugely thankful for his outstanding developments in astronomy and his brilliant contributions to art and architecture. Above all, god knows that our modern day society is still based on the more-than-2000-years-old philosophies of Plato & Socrates.

Generations after generation we follow them because they invested their lives towards development of society and the world. It is very simple – if you contribute you will be remembered.

Where such sudden deaths can depress you and make you sad. They can also inspire you to make most of the time you have and make sure you don’t leave this world unheard.