On Life and Death

The traffic was moving at a snail’s pace on the free way this morning. Most of the days, especially during the rush hour, the traffic is pretty bad, but nothing like this; this took the icing on the cake so to speak. I just hated it that I was stuck doing nothing, could not take any other exit and worst of all would be late for work for no fault of mine. 

 After much snorting and cursing, I reached work about an hour and half late. I was complaining to my colleague about the traffic when she told me that there was a major accident an hour ago and that 2 people had died there when their car had crashed with an 18 wheeler. My frustration and anger turned to shock! This is the very freeway that I take every day to work and back home. Death is so unprecedented and that accident could have happened to anyone.  It could have been anybody’s turn to die. Those 2 people who died would not have even imagined that this would be their last day on earth. 

I was stuck thinking about life and death that day. We take so many things about life for granted, we get carried away by the flow of our everyday lives that we begin to develop a deep sense of security about it. We plan so many things for our future, for our families etc oblivious to the fact that death might snatch us away from life anytime, putting an end to all our plans. We forget that life is temporary and death is looming over us all the time. 

We come to this world alone, finish our journey and leave alone. We come with nothing and leave with nothing. With so much uncertainty pertaining in our lives, the only certain part is DEATH. No living being rich or poor, beautiful or not, young or old, intelligent or not is ever spared of this. Every single living being has to undergo this transition. There is never a”Why me”? question with death. In that pre-defined instant we are transported from the known to the unknown world.