When my grandfather passed away, I felt very sorry for his loss, but probably the most heart-breaking realization was how much my grandmother suffered during that period.
His death was very sudden and unexpected. I remember visiting him in hospital after University two years ago and he was all fine. I sat there on a chair beside him and opened my laptop to work on my report as he was tired and sleeping. Then as he noticed my presence he woke up and made an effort to stay awake because he appreciated me visiting. A nurse brought him food and he offered me part of his share because that's how he was. We didn't speak much, but I'm very glad I was present, and I think he was too. As I sat there, he fell back to sleep and that would be the last day I talked to him, for two weeks later he moved beyond. Life is given to us without us asking for it, and taken much the same way. It is this fragility that we should cherish and keep in our daily routines so that we do not succumb to hurting people, lying, doing things which we would regret doing if death knocks on the door.
However, death is not much of a burden for the person who dies but rather a suffering for those that lost a person to it. I may have spent eighteen years of my life knowing this person I called my grandfather, but his wife had spent fifty years or more. I cannot comprehend the agony she might have felt when he went missing. Every little detail in her life changed from one day to the next. From making toast in the morning to sleeping in bed and washing the clothes, nothing of this sort would feel the same ever again. As a wife, she lived to be happy by making someone else happy and when the source of her happiness vanished she found herself lost and abandoned. All the memories that she had formed now lead to a person she could no longer share them with. All the laughs, all the tears, all the struggles that she surmounted with the help of this other person she chose to be the wife of, were now a figment of the past.
And yet, she had to move on, for life is like this and there is no stopping but for brief moments of mourning. I'm sure that that she misses him more than anything in the world, for we are made like this, us humans. Our emotions drive us, they build us, and sometimes they beat us to the core of our heart and shake us violently awake to the truths of life. But we manage to surpass this grief by realizing how beautiful the time spent with those we care and how precious the possibility of being with these people was.
That is why we have to appreciate life at the present moment, before death descends upon us.
His death was very sudden and unexpected. I remember visiting him in hospital after University two years ago and he was all fine. I sat there on a chair beside him and opened my laptop to work on my report as he was tired and sleeping. Then as he noticed my presence he woke up and made an effort to stay awake because he appreciated me visiting. A nurse brought him food and he offered me part of his share because that's how he was. We didn't speak much, but I'm very glad I was present, and I think he was too. As I sat there, he fell back to sleep and that would be the last day I talked to him, for two weeks later he moved beyond. Life is given to us without us asking for it, and taken much the same way. It is this fragility that we should cherish and keep in our daily routines so that we do not succumb to hurting people, lying, doing things which we would regret doing if death knocks on the door.
However, death is not much of a burden for the person who dies but rather a suffering for those that lost a person to it. I may have spent eighteen years of my life knowing this person I called my grandfather, but his wife had spent fifty years or more. I cannot comprehend the agony she might have felt when he went missing. Every little detail in her life changed from one day to the next. From making toast in the morning to sleeping in bed and washing the clothes, nothing of this sort would feel the same ever again. As a wife, she lived to be happy by making someone else happy and when the source of her happiness vanished she found herself lost and abandoned. All the memories that she had formed now lead to a person she could no longer share them with. All the laughs, all the tears, all the struggles that she surmounted with the help of this other person she chose to be the wife of, were now a figment of the past.
And yet, she had to move on, for life is like this and there is no stopping but for brief moments of mourning. I'm sure that that she misses him more than anything in the world, for we are made like this, us humans. Our emotions drive us, they build us, and sometimes they beat us to the core of our heart and shake us violently awake to the truths of life. But we manage to surpass this grief by realizing how beautiful the time spent with those we care and how precious the possibility of being with these people was.
That is why we have to appreciate life at the present moment, before death descends upon us.
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