Death
February 20th, 2007 by faitheclare
I have had experienced death. Death of a relationship. Death of a distant dream. Death of a yearning heart. I have little fear for death. The day I die, I will be an elephant; leaving the herd before breathing her last. On the 24th day of September 2006, I experienced death of a loved one. It was a tragic accident - crashed, burnt and at 11.20 pm Uncle Chin lost his final battle. He was 46. A civil engineer - He had dark curly hair and each time he smiled, those nostrils would flare upward as if saying hello to his eyebrows He used to carry and spin the little me around the room. That was the closest we got. Aloof and quiet, he was a man of a few words who hid behind The Strait Times almost all day. Often he would put down the papers, frowning as if he had a lot in his hazy mind. Then he would flick the dandruffs off his hair as he mumbled his displeasure off his chest before he picked up the papers again. Pretty standard behaviour of his. We didn’t bond. He was just an Uncle who was neutral to my existence as I was to his. Ten years back I bumped into him on my way to work. Being a nocturnal creature, I was in my usual morning daze. He was in the clinic, looking sick and somewhat defeated. "No matter what happens, bear with it. Jobs are scarce these days." I nodded as I broke the first smile of the day. A ladder of stitches running down his neck, he had always been feeble. The day he was born, my dad recalled running to the shop around the corner of street for some honey for his first milk intake. His deep set eyes now pregnant with a deep sense of sorrow, almost too painful to look into especially when I was in my desolation then. That was the first and last decent conversation between an uncle and his niece who stayed under the same roof for 16 years. Days after his demise, I took liberty with his diary. I fathomed the unfathomable in those eyes - lost love, intense loneliness and prolong period of physical torment. I saw the phone numbers of the woman he loved on one of the pages. She still didn’t know…. Blood ran ice cold inside me and it is still….. The Bardo period, they say is 49 days after death. Uncle Chin was a devoted Buddhist. He had a deep affiliation with the Thai culture. He spoke that beautiful language and she was Thai. Perhaps he is in some part of Thailand now, crying in his mother’s arms and his eldest brother is running to the shop around the corner of street for some honey for his first milk intake. Same soul, different body. It is new start, Uncle Chin Let go and live your new life to the max! Break free from the Samsara…ultimately.
Today the effort should be done. Who knows if tomorrow Death will come. Majjhima Nikaya V:131
