They watched me grow,
I’ll watch them die,
See them leave me,
Right before my eyes.
I figured the best way to start this blog would be to address the thing that has never left my mind since the age of 12. On the 25th of January, 2016 I experienced death in close quarters. This was the first time I’d lost a family member; my maternal grandfather whom I was extremely close with. His death hit me really hard and its impact changed me completely.
It was the start of a philosophical crisis; I was sort of floored by the fact everyone I knew, and myself, was going to die one day. I couldn't believe that we were mortal. I was suddenly aware of the fact that I was growing up and the time I had would never come back. And it scared me. It still does. Why can’t time stop? Why can’t we stay where we are for a while, if not forever? 'Change' doesn't haunt me, everyday there’s some change or the other in everyone’s life. It was the fact that I’ll never be the same age again, never live the same day again, never being able to watch a particular movie for the first time, never being able to feel a particular emotion for the first time. Why can’t we go back in time? Why can’t we relive our days as a child?
Especially with the fact that I’m going to be an adult soon makes me feel like I’ve grown up too fast. As a child, you can’t wait to grow up but now that I’m here, well, the tables have turned for me. Now, I would sell my soul to the devil just to live one more day as a seven-year-old. Because from now, life just goes on. There’s no going back. From the ages of four to eighteen; living with your parents, going to school, being carefree was always a constant even though you were ascending grades and growing in height. But when you’re finally at the finishing line of this chapter, you realize that regardless of how much you complained about your workload and how much you fought with your parents, it’s never coming back.
From the ages of four to eighteen, it’s been just flat land that you’re walking on. Just moving ahead. But when you turn eighteen you realize it’s not flat land anymore. Beyond the gate that says “adulthood” are stairs and stairs and stairs, because from here on there’s no more flatland. It’s just going upward; that training part of life has ended. A stairway to heaven. And then the gates open and before you can say “wait- '' someone's pushing you from behind. There’s no going back. Your childhood has gone and now you’re an adult and life has started with an undisclosed endpoint where the stairs stop and you’ve reached the clouds.
With my grandfather gone, I realized that soon my parents will be next and then me. Isn’t there something more, something more than this circle of life and death? I was confused as to how people keep living their day-to-day life without realizing that it could end the very next minute. How can people keep going about their day in such a casual manner when we know we were born to die? I started to dwell on that topic which made me question life and existence itself, how we came to be, if we’re alone in the universe, if we’re real or not, whether life after death exists, and why we have to follow the never-ending cycle of life and death. I don’t want to accept this cycle. Isn’t there something more?
When you’re a grandparent, you’ve lost all those people who watched you grow. Then you realize, it’s your turn to watch.
My flesh and blood,
Thousands of generations old,
They’re inside me,
I’ll live on for them when they go.
-Leia
