As we grow older, time just seems to move faster. You get to hear this more and more often; "but hadn't the year just begun!". As a kid, it always seemed absurd to hear an adult say, "I can't believe you've grown up so soon/tall". We've all rolled our eyes on such remarks. Now, I feel the same way about my niece, my friend's kids. They were all so teeny tiny, what felt like maybe just a year or two ago. Don't think any of the kids are having unusual growth spurts, but their two/three years become far more visible to us than maybe the few grays elusively growing at the back of our heads.
Life is strange. Just as I am contemplating about time, received a call from my mother informing me of her eldest sister's passing away. This year she has lost one brother-in-law and now a sister. Every death is a suffering for the survivors. But we grieve differently for each one and possibly for different reasons. We cry for our dead, the one who will not be around anymore. Maybe, we wish we had met them/ spoken to them this one last time. But death always reminds us of our own mortality and of the ones near and dear to us. It probably reminds my mother (the youngest among all siblings) the painful realty, now for the very first time she has to live in a world without her eldest sibling. For my father, maybe it is yet another death of someone from their generation pool. That pool has begun to shrink. To me it is a reminder of the natural course of life, that awaits. That maybe we're not yet equipped to handle. Time will tell.
To the ones we have lost this year, you will continue to live in our memories. For memories is all that we truly are.
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