D stayed at the hospital last night to take care of his grandpa. then he texted me that his friend's mom passed away last night. : ( that friend is also his batch mate and works with him now. i feel sad.. realizing that one day, our loved ones, the people near to us, will be taken away from us, even if we don't like it. we can't avoid it, we can't do anything to stop it from happening. it made me realize once again that life could end at any moment. i always prayed for the end of the world.. not because im ready, but because i don't want to go through the pain that death brings.
i remember Nicholas Sparks' book Three Weeks With My Brother, a memoir he wrote with his brother Micah, which tells of their story as a family. they're 5 in the family, and at age 37 and 38 respectively, they are now the only surviving members of their family. i can't imagine how they went through the death of their parents and sister.
here's an excerpt:
"Did you ever wonder why things happened the was they did?" Micah asked, apropos of nothing.
"All the time," I responded, knowing exactly what he was referring to.
"Most of my friends haven't lost anyone close to them."
"Neither have mine. And Cat hasn't either."
"Why is that?"
"Who knows. I wish I could tell you, but I can't."
Micah pushed his hands into his pockets.
"Have you ever noticed that people think of us as experts on death now? I mean, whenever a friend has someone die, he or she always calls me to talk. Does that happen to you?"
"All the time," I answered.
"What do you say?"
"It depends."
"I never know what to tell them. I mean, there's nothing you can say to stop a person from hurting. Half the time, I just feel like telling them the truth. I'd say that for three months, you're going to feel worse than you've ever felt, and you cope as best as you can. And that after six months, the pain isn't so bad, but it still hurts more than you think it will. And even after years, you still find yourself thinking about the person you lost, and get sad about it. And you still miss them all the time."
"Why don't you say that?"
"Because that's not what people want to hear. They want to hear that it's going to be okay. That the pain goes away. But it doesn't. It never does. And you can't say that when the wound is fresh. It would be like pouring salt in their wound, and you can't do that to a person. So instead, I tell them what they want to hear." He paused. "What have all these losses taught you?
"That it hurts, but you've got to go on anyway."
"That's what I learned, too. But you know, I would rather have learned it a lot later in life"
"Me, too."
"You know what else I learned?" Micah asked.
"What's that?"
"That it's a cumulative thing. Mom's and dad's deaths were hard, but it's like when you lose both of them, it's not only twice the loss. It's exponential. And then, when we lost Dana... it wasn't like we lost three people we loved. It's like we lost almost everything."
Micah shook his head before going on.
"After something like that... well, even though you try to get through it - and might seem fine on the surface - underneath you're a wreck, and you don't even know it. And sometimes, it takes a while to figure out that you're still struggling with everything that happened."
i read this when i got home and tears just came. : ( i hope that i'll always cherish every moment i have with my loved ones. because time is precious and life is fragile.
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