Circle of Life

Breathe. Take it simple. Take it easy. 

I just had this conversation with dad... It has been an unbelievably tough two months. Since March we've been in mourning. Almost every two weeks, someone in the family dies. 

I hope this time was the last one.

The hardest thing is, to see your loved ones in grief. See them cry. It's not only the fact that someone close died and is going to be missed around, it's the pain and sadness you see your family in, that makes it worse. 

My mom is so strong. She can go through anything. She would never show fear or sadness, no matter what happens. She always hold things together. Even in tough times. No matter the pain she's in, she would never shed a tear in front of others, because she thinks if they see her crying it would make them weaker and dwell in more pain, whereas if you show strength, it might help them stop crying and cheer up a little bit.

Today mom was different. She was weak. She was crying. My grandmother too. She cried. Two powerful strong women, cried in front of me for the first time. And I just lost it. Too painful. I prayed and asked for strength, because there isn't any left. 

It was right before the funeral where you sit beside the body and say goodbye. 

It's weird to see the dead body. Especially when you know the person. It's like as if people have batteries, that hiss's was just taken out. Or like a switch button that was clicked off. 

You look at the body, laying there, sleeping peacefully, wearing a beautiful suit. Mouth closed, eyes shot, pale coloured. You stare at him and you reminisce. His laugh, his jokes, his dance... His goodness. All the sweetest cutest things... And then you cringe. You snip back to the reality that he is just a body that's going to be buried soon, that that's it, he is gone. You cry again.

It's sad. Because he was good. A part of us. Someone that my family loved so much. Sad because he's going to be missing. We will be family minus one. 

It's like as in birth, you gain someone to your family and you become a plus one. In death, it's the the opposite, you lose one. 

To have more, you need room, right? You lose someone and you get someone. It's life. Someone is born, other passes away. It's nature's way of taking and giving back life to the earth. Someone dies to give another a new life. 

Life, is where things change, for the good and for the bad, and we constantly keep growing and learning. 

My dad told me, at a conversation I had with him, after we came back from the funeral, he said that's exactly why we need to take life easy and everything simple. Nothing is really worth it. Nothing we worry about. Don't take things too seriously. Enjoy. Be good. To everyone and yourself. Don't fight with people. Don't get upset. Don't work too hard. Because for what? Life is not guaranteed. No one knows what will happen or when. When you work too hard and forget to live and fight with people, and then all of a sudden, you get a stroke, or cancer strikes in, and you die in very little notice, so then what was all the hard work and fights for? Was it really worth it in the end ?? No. 

My grandfather, dads dad, died when I was very little. I didn't know him. It was on the year I was  born. My dad said that he was healthy. Sports man. It was an early morning where he had just returned home from a jog. As he got in the house his heart stopped working, he fell and died immediately. It was hard and so sad to everyone.

This is life. Things happen sometimes just all of a sudden. You don't know how much time you'll live or others around you will. Nothing is promised. Things change and people change. Babies are born and others die.

It's a shame I say, that I didn't get the chance to know my grandfather. But maybe his early death or the way he died made my dad stronger and the person he is today. His peacefulness and goodness is just incredible. The way he deals with things. I love him. I learn from him a lot. 

Maybe it's true, there is something good in every little thing or bad thing that happens. That's what I believe. It was the hardest months so far on me, and I hope this is the last death in the family, at least for a while. 

I wasn't only sad, but also really worried. It hit me that as I get older, the people around me get older too. Those grownups I had around when I was little, are old now. Some are really old. I see how they change. How different and weak they become by time. It is scary to realize that they will not live forever. That they are growing old too. And that day will come. 

I am 30 years old. It's big. I guess it's the age to start handling these situations. Handling loss. But that's life and the way it is. That's what's so hard to understand and takes time and growth to realize and get through it. Through life.  

I can say I am grown more. I am more connected to the family and the extended family members that I don't see often. We've been meeting in those hard situations, but at least we meet and talk and that's the little good out of all this I guess.