My schoolmate’s wife died late last week. Dengue was the cause. It happened abruptly, without warning and thoughts starting flooding in as they are wont to do in these types of events.
A bunch of my other school mates showed up for the funeral. I hadn’t seen a few of them in many years and we bemoaned the fact that we were catching up only because of a tragic finality.
I’ve tended to take so much for granted. There’s always the call that can wait, an email that is not responded to immediately, things not said waiting for a more opportune moment. Unfortunately, life doesn’t subscribe to our schedule. We come into this world often with much fanfare but when we go, it’s often like a candle being snuffed out. So many words unsaid, so many plans laid to waste and you are left wondering at the futility of it all.
A few days after a death we’ll go back to our routine lives, worrying and fretting the mundane and confident that we have all this time to achieve what we’ve set out to do. I for one am not going to do that or at least consciously give my damnedest not to fall back into the fallacies I’ve been guilty of. I am going to be in touch with my close friends and family a lot more, never postpone a call or an email I’ve been sitting on. Carpe Diem is a well worn cliche, but this time the gravitas has hit home.
