IT ALL PASSES

Sep 22, 2008 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Death is something we all have to face. We are all mortal and we all must one day end our time here on Earth.

Death is not easy to accept. But we must accept that, just as how a flower opens one day and dies another, so, too, must life renew itself through death.

Once we accept there is no permanence to anything in this life, we will be much better-placed to deal with pain, suffering and death.

Yet many of us experience a great deal of frustration and emptiness in our lives simply because we hold on to things and expect them to last forever. In so doing, when it comes the time to let go, we often find it difficult.

This is none more so than with power, wealth and fame. These, too, are transient, and the quicker we accept this fact, the better it will be for our own wellbeing.

Even things that we should try to treasure as long as possible: compassion, friendship and love for one’s family, will eventually fade away. And the better we understand the impermanence of all things, the more contented lives we will have.

Accepting the death of a loved one is never easy. And reading Uncle Adam’s lovely article yesterday reflecting on his recent losses brought out how all of us feel a sense of guilt at the passing of someone near and dear to us. In Uncle Adam’s case, he is hurting at the fact that he was not there at the time his father passed away.

His love for his father was so deep and profound that he wished he was there. He was not there because it was meant for him not to be there. He was elsewhere, and this is what fate had destined. He should feel no guilt. It is a sign of love for his father, not about any regrets, that he believes that if he were there, his father would not have died.

His father’s time had come, and it was time for him to go. I saw him at the wake. I ate his food and drank his vodka. I sat next to his cousins, and I saw how hurt he was by the death of his father.

It will be hard for him now, but just like life, the feelings that are now tormenting him will pass. These, too, are impermanent.

He will look back one year from now and say to me that I was right. He will look back with pride that he got to know his father and that his father got to know him in a way that most children and fathers never share.

One year from now, the pain would have passed, and what would remain would be something more lasting: the memory of a relationship that, when shared with others, would be inspiring.

I urge him, not now, but in time, to share that story with others. It is a really lovely story full of the unpredictable and unexpected nature of human existence. It is also the story of the Uncle Adam that not many people know and appreciate; a story of his father, and especially of a really good son.

In time, he will come to appreciate what a great opportunity life had presented to him by his circumstances, to know the man that was his father and to know the man that fathered him.

Not many of us have that privilege. Not many of us have had the chance to do something for our fathers. And so, despite him feeling all hurt at this time, Uncle Adam will one day, when the soreness of the loss goes away, as it will, look back and say how lucky he was that he was able to be there for his father.

On behalf of this column, and I know I speak on behalf of the entire Kaieteur News staff, I extend heartfelt sympathies to Uncle Adam and to his family on the passing of his father.

I know, also, that many of you who are reading this will identify with what was said. For those who still have fathers who are alive, use that opportunity to be near to them, because one thing of which we are certain in life is death, nothing is permanent. It all passes, the loss and the pain, leaving only the love — the only thing of permanence.

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IT ALL PASSES

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