We shall all be dead, we know that don’t we? And yet we resist, we fear. I fear to die, yes. I have no idea what is beyond my death. And perhaps…actually for sure and to be absolutely honest, I don’t really want to know what lies beyond. So many answers, if you ask around everyone has an answer, usually a different one. Answers fry my brain. I mean I’m having a hard enough time dealing with living, let me handle one predicament at a time. I wonder if I had at one time ever questioned myself “What will happen after I’m born?” Hmmm…?
So am I afraid to die? Yes I already said so. But why should I be, when I am dying every day. Every moment is a death of that life I was allotted. I should be more afraid.…to live!
You know, just the other day I was made aware of the real possibility that my poetry may only be given recognition after I die…the fate of many a poet. And you know, instead of being discouraged, or a feeling of dread I actually felt excited. What a great prospect!! To be remembered when you are no longer there. When your physical presence is not necessary, kind of like errmm…God! Instead, your memories and your words are recalled. And they would wonder how I wrote this or why I thought that. A mystery, for eternity. That is when I shall be alive. What a marvelous and an immeasurable way to live.
I reached the last page of my diary
Now I write on the night skies
My words whistle through the wind
And on every leaf of every tree
Through eternal echoes
You shall remember me
So let me die each day in dignity. Though the physical body resists and my material world constricts me.
Some ties are difficult to sever though you are aware that in this life there can be no forever. I once heard that you do not die in death.
You do not die in death…
You do not die in death…
You do not die in death…
You do not die, but you can waste your life. When that day arrives, that day death itself shall die if you have stamped upon life your thumbprint.
So I will pass this life as though I have a flock of cheerleaders urging me on. Only I shall see them and hear them. I will not take my life so seriously. What an offering, what an opportunity to feel good about myself and about others. If I don’t grab this gift, the magic will be transferred to someone else. And mine shall be an empty shell, hollow but soundless.
If you write it, they will read*
If you live it, you shall never die
***
* “If you write it, they will read” was some valuable advice I was given when I first started to write, nervously.
This essay was written for the Living and Dying series, see original post. Please contact Sreejit if you would like to get involved.
SONYA KASSAM 
oooh my l loved your emphasis on the three words~’you do not die in death’
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How I would love to take credit for that line. It was important enough to make the emphasis.
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Dear Sonya,
This is a wonderful post!
I believe we’ve all been “in” death before. It is precisely, and nothing other than, where we were before we were born. We’re going back to the same room we have previously occupied
Our intellect cannot grasp it. We seem to lack a memory of it. And yet we’ve been there before. And to there we return.
We may fear death now. Upon what memory or knowledge of where we have already been, though, are we basing that?
I heard it said that we, in fact, do not die in death…if we die now. But to what?
You mention about not taking life so seriously. I wish that ethic could be immediately inculcated into every person, in every culture, now. Imagine…
All good wishes,
robert
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Thanks for your very interesting and thought provoking comment Robert.
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I loved this piece Sonya. So reflective. So fundamental. I made a copy of the poem so I can read it again whenever I need reassurance that, when I am physically gone, something I said will still exist. That is exciting.
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Ohh thanks Bob! Sure you will still exist…for a long, long time.
Just had a thought, why don’t you contribute as well? Check out the details in the link I provided. I am so sure you will have interesting thoughts to share.
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Dear Sonya, it is a beautiful piece of writing. Yes dying is part of our life, either we really die or die while we are still alive, what a nice philosophical way of looking at oneself.
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Hi Ranu. You got it right, dying while still alive is a scary prospect. Thanks for your comment.
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