Mortality: A Friend-in-Waiting

Five-year plans, ten-year plans, fifteen-year plans; what a prepared race we are and what a fallacy the first half of this sentence signifies. We spend our lives preparing, planning and striving to achieve those plans. But how many of us are prepared with our one-day plan? How many of us even acknowledge its significance in our lives?

The one-day plan is the plan that exists in realisation that our mortality is closer than we think… in some cases she may even be tapping our shoulder!

The phrase ‘Live each day like it was your last’ takes on new meaning today. It’s not telling us to get hammered one last time, or go pub-hopping and everything else that consumerism and the fast-forward life has on offer.

It’s telling us to slow-down considerably and take a good close look at the very real possibility of our own mortality. We need to ask ourselves one seemingly simple question: “How would I live my life if today was my last day on earth?” The answer is universal because the answer begins and continues with ‘love’. (I say continues because love is never-ending; it changes but it’s always there, transcending time and space, geography and culture, situations and characteristics.) If today was my last day, I’d like to live it with love; love for the Almighty, love for the universe, love for nature, love for people… love for everyone and everything.

I’d tell all the people I love that I love them (spiritually to the one's I can't tell in person), hug my parents for longer than I usually do, talk to my brother and sister-in-law just a little longer, have longer-than-usual conversations with my soul-sisters (my angels on Earth and best-friends) smile at everyone I come across and find my sense of spirit, peace and solace in my silence. While I’m at it, I would also like to look into the eyes of a wild horse and ride her saddle-free, look at leaves dancing to the wind and realise that this is one of the most beautiful dances ever, lose myself in the ocean… I could go on and on and on.

The point is, actions that are so easy to ignore and take for granted are the ones that matter the most. I believe only when we’re aware of our mortality, only when we understand that we’re here one minute and gone the next, we actually start living... not existing.

Life isn’t about the next purchase, possessions, family names, professional titles; it’s about who we are as people. It’s time to undress, strip ourselves of things and titles that cast a shadow on the real me and the real you. Some of us may dislike what we see and that’s okay… I can assure you that no one and I mean no one always likes what they see on the inside. We’re not supposed to like what we see; we’re supposed to be aware of its presence, understand the dislike, accept it for what it is and know that at the end of the day, people who truly love us love us with all those chinks in our armour. Life is not about being perfect (far from it as most of us will agree), it about accepting and living with the imperfections.

I agree that it’s easier said than done, but give it half a chance. Begin with baby steps, half a step if required. Sometimes you’ll find yourself taking a step forward and then going back… and that’s okay. The beauty is that you’ve started taking your steps.

I write this out of passion – passion for the one-day plan. I met one of my soul-sisters (Earth angels) one evening. While we poured our souls out to each other, we found solace in the silence that followed. We looked at each other, smiled and then laughed hysterically. A person sitting close-by walked up and said that we looked like the calmest, most peaceful people on earth and he was happy that everything was going our way.

As he walked away, we looked at each other again and thought – but not everything is going our way. Little did he know what she and I were dealing with – but life’s like that. We learn (with great difficulty and a lot of pain and tears) that soulful acceptance and belief in the universe’s plan is what eventually brings us our peace… real peace. Like everyone we go through phases of course; there’ll be days of solace in numbness, a few days of flying with wet wings and when we have no wings on some other days, the Almighty and the universe has a way of teaching us (again) to walk. The truth is looking at ourselves within, staying connected to ourselves and believing that we’re all a part of a greater plan.

I believe most of us spend a lot of energy trying to make things happen, in reality though, we can make things happens up to a point and then it goes the way it is pre-ordained. It’s natural for our mind to wish otherwise however, try letting go and try understanding that life does not begin and end with ‘I’.

Yes, acceptance is hard and reality can be mind-numbingly painful but belief in the greater plan (no questions asked) will get us through.

So do I have my one-day plan is place? Yes, yes I do… though I’d better start looking for that wild horse now. J

Have a fabulously blessed day everyone.                   

Viveka Babajee's true friends won't talk...

... because they are the ones who're too numb with pain and too traumatised with grief over the passing of their dearest friend. They're the ones who knew what Viveka was going through, they're the ones who wiped her tears and wished they could do more to take her pain away and banish her disillusionment with life.

Life and death have a way of separating true friends from the 'I-Knew-Her/Him' people. She made one last call for help, she reached out one last time to a man she believed would stand by her and then she ended it. Speculating the why's and how's are futile because she's passed through this physical world into the spiritual one.

It saddens me to read snippets from her 'so-called' friends telling the media and in-effect the world-at-large, 'how they wished she'd spoken to them', or 'how she seemed so normal'. Well, if they were indeed her real friends she'd have turned to them, they would have had some inclination of the depth of her pain and suffering. Regarding her 'seeming normal', while a suicidal person may think of ways to kill herself, something just snaps in that one moment and that's probably when Viveka decided to take the step she did.

My point of contention is this: who are we to discuss her life and reasons for her death in public? She's gone, left this cruel world behind, why then does the media feel the need to delve into parts of her personal life that should stay personal? It's easy for the world-at-large to judge her based on the things she did or did not do; but has anyone bothered to try and understand that action is usually a response to something deeper, something more disturbing, probably something buried... something that should stay personal. Her closest friends would have known of course and there's no doubt they will respect her memory and her privacy... devoid of judgments.

Is this what we now call news? Or is this some kind of perverse intrusion into parts of someone's personal life? News needs to be left at reporting her death, how she died and whether someone is directly or indirectly responsible... nothing more. This is reporting, anything beyond is mere speculation and that's where we disrespect her memory.

Her true friends won't quote in the media simply because they'd be too upset, they respect her memory and of course their grief is personal. They'd want to remember her for her laughs and her tears... no reasons, no questions, no judgments, no discussions. While her true friends mourn their loss, they'd also believe that her troubled spirit is now at peace and she'd always be with them spiritually. True friends wouldn't speculate, look for reason or discuss justifications; that's left to the people that claim to be her 'friends'.

Viveka's gone to a better place and her friends will mourn their loss and celebrate her memory... behind closed doors. It's time the media left it at that and leave her spirit in peace... give her the one thing that she left this life for... please give her the peace she so desired.