When we are young we are not so much aware of fragile nature of our condition potentially riddled with freaky accidents. Maybe such the notion would not come easily into our mind for us to lead carefree living. Our awareness of our precarious condition may not be usually strong enough until we are stuck with a misfortune. For children, the notion of dying is hard to grasp even encountering death of beloved pets in their lives. Soon or later, we all come to realization that it's not just our pets are subjected to mortality, but humans are also fall into the same predicament. As we grow older, we more or less have experienced with "death" in accidents, illnesses and natural causes among the members of family, friends, colleagues, neighbors, which would lead to thinking about our own mortality. We all experience death in one shape or the other, but the degree to which the notion come to our consciousness may differ one another; some sages realize this early in their lives like Buddha, but for any ordinary human being it may not come so naturally. It is through internalization, meditation, and philosophical thinking as we gain spirituality.
My grandmother suffered from a long illness before she passed away. For that matter, when my grandmother died when I was a little, sadness did not encroached upon me harshly. My view of her death was more or like that of Lao Tzu, as an event that takes place naturally, not stirring up much emotion. However, as I grew older and became more sympathetic toward unfortunate events of human lives, Several years later, after passing away of my grand-mother, a friend of our family passed away early in her last 40's. Growing up in a large family living with my great-grandmother who was over 80 years old at that time, I figured that the lady passed away much early in her life. Her death struck me breaking the notion that a person does not have to be old to die . Unlike my grand-mother, the lady passed away too young. The woman had lived in my neighborhood, and I remember visiting her house for the first time when my father took me along with, and several times thereafter when my mother stopped by her house for chatting on the way home from shopping at the market place. One day, coming from school, I noticed a lamp hung outside the main door of her house. For I had seen the type of lamp lit several years prior when my grandmother passed away, I knew immediately what the implication of the lamp was for. The light shinning in the evening in late fall exuded a desolate feeling. Later when I I was told that the lady of the house passed away, my mother was shocked at the news and kept on saying that her life was cut too short abruptly only in late 40's. It was unbelievable to me that the lady who came to my house just several days ago to chat with my mother could be gone so soon. I have come across a number of abrupt events like her death throughout my life, and became feeling sad and deeper into realization how we are walking on thin ice. As a person who had experienced death right after marrying, through a miscarriage. I wonder any of my sibling has ever experienced such feeling in their lives like I have been through the moments, that seem to be so prevalent in our social lives and yet seldom experienced in their lives yet. Visiting the house following my Dad rendered a situation to think about death in my early life, and I wonder sometimes asking to myself, " why I was the one who was asked to come along with Dad, and why it was me who stopped by her house along with my Mom, not my siblings altogether, not with any of my siblings, on that day?"
About one year later, my father took me to an excursion to a mountain, which were accompanied by several of his friends, including widower of the lady. Meeting them at a cafe at the foot of the mountain, I heard my father consoling his friend encouraging him to get over his grief. While they were talking, I was bored, asking the a question to myself, "Why I came here with Dad alone, not with any of my sibling?"
I live in a town where not many Koreans live, but I have come across with another "Way me?" moment recently. I jug along the route 36 time to time, passing by an old cemetery in the town where I live. On one evening, I decided spontaneously to go up on the hill to see the cemetery, perhaps with a reason that it might help me to decide my body be buried in a cemetery instead of cremated when the time comes. As soon as I ran up, I noticed many tombstones, one of which popped out my eyes opened in surprise of a tombstone carved out in both in English and Korean. I did not expect to find Korean characters in the graveyard. I would have easily paid no attention to the tombstone if it had not been in Korean characters. The tombstone is of a young lady, whose age is too young, to be mourned for anyone; I could not think of myself laying there in such young age - my life barely started at that time, and I became sad thinking about fragility of human condition that had fallen on her in such young age. I asked to myself the the same question: "Why me? That I found myself standing in front of her tombstone today." On the next day, I bought a flower and laid in front of the tombstone to pay her a respect and to think of my finite time left here on this earth.
Sometimes, in our lives, we encounter moments that are too difficult to handle. In this moment, we contemplate that there is not much difference between dead and alive. There is some benefit of thinking immortal nature of human existence; ourselves laying in coffins several feet underground resting in peace. The moments can come as learning experiences, like a Judo master who said that part of Judo is learning how to fall down gracefully without getting hurt. After all, dying is falling from living. Longer I live, I would think of the extra time here on earth as a gift allowing us to do the things that we love, perhaps loving humanity, and more practice time for those who are afraid of dying, like in Judo which has great time spent on falling gracefully in order to minimize inherent risks and dangers involved with falling.
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