Suddenly--
Last night, he died.
It was a shock, really--the boy was so healthy-looking, and he was just eleven years old. The sudden dengue attack was too sudden. And when we went to the wake (just got home from there, actually), I found myself wincing before the coffin. The more I looked, the more it seemed unreal; the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't believe it. And so I couldn't last five minutes looking at the empty husk.
I wasn't that close to the boy--can't even say that we were actually friends (it shames me to say that maybe the reason I'm affected is because he was too young--all the more danger to me...it's selfish, then...). My brother was important to him though--two stories from the boy's parents say that he mentioned my brother twice during his ordeal. This impressed me, I must admit--my bro had made such an impression on him that he spoke of him during his moments of premonition.
It was all so sudden...and I am forced to face the question again. After the two deaths in my family, I had spent many of my waking hours thinking on death, how it was nothing more than change, how it separates only the material but cannot touch the eternal, how it is the true awakening. But death strikes anew and I find my reflections somewhat stale and heartless.
I can only take consolation in quotations and the insights of others wiser than I. Like the Little Prince:
"I shall look as if I were suffering. I shall look...as if I were dying.... I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true."
It was a shock, really--the boy was so healthy-looking, and he was just eleven years old. The sudden dengue attack was too sudden. And when we went to the wake (just got home from there, actually), I found myself wincing before the coffin. The more I looked, the more it seemed unreal; the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't believe it. And so I couldn't last five minutes looking at the empty husk.
I wasn't that close to the boy--can't even say that we were actually friends (it shames me to say that maybe the reason I'm affected is because he was too young--all the more danger to me...it's selfish, then...). My brother was important to him though--two stories from the boy's parents say that he mentioned my brother twice during his ordeal. This impressed me, I must admit--my bro had made such an impression on him that he spoke of him during his moments of premonition.
It was all so sudden...and I am forced to face the question again. After the two deaths in my family, I had spent many of my waking hours thinking on death, how it was nothing more than change, how it separates only the material but cannot touch the eternal, how it is the true awakening. But death strikes anew and I find my reflections somewhat stale and heartless.
I can only take consolation in quotations and the insights of others wiser than I. Like the Little Prince:
"I shall look as if I were suffering. I shall look...as if I were dying.... I shall look as if I were dead; and that will not be true."