Attending 2 funerals with in a few days has me ponder…about life. They were boyfriend’s father, and a friend’s father, both had passed away earlier this week. We all live, and we all shall die one day, some day. It is nature. It is inevitable.
This one Buddhist monk at my BF’s father’s funeral preached with the words of the Buddha that we should not suffer in sadness of loss, for all we have are just temporary, and are not ours. One day we shall lose it all, even our own body, our own life. Do not claim things as yours, do not feel attached with things that you think are yours, for we all were born naked, when we die, we also go naked. No one can bring anything, except one’s self and soul, to the realm of death when the time for departure has come.
Sounds easy, but ever so complicated.
The theory could, however, sooth the mind of people who lose their beloved ones. If we think it is just natural that some one dies some day, then it’s not as sad.
We cannot bring back the dead, no matter how hard we cry.
We can’t avoid it, we can’t stop it.
Then what we can do?
I would say, do your best while you can, before you die, and before your beloved ones die. Do things that you should do, do things that you want to do, spend time with people you love as much as you can, so that when it’s time to say goodbye, you won’t feel deprived.
I want to be a person who does not regret when death arrives.
In order to accomplish that, I’ll have to live my life to the fullest, fulfill my dreams and wishes, accomplish my goals, and treat people around me as nice as I could. I want to live without fear for the future, without hesitation in the present, and without regret of the past.
In your life you may let many people down in several occasions, but you should remember to, or at least try to, never let yourself down. Should you realize you have let yourself down, behave and pick yourself up!
Easier be said than done, I know.
Regrets gives nothing to you if you let it burden your mind too much. Heck it might teach you one or two lessons to do or not to do something in some certain situation, yeah. In my country there’s a saying “Mistake is your teacher.” Yes of course, if you learn from your former mistakes. Let it teach you, but not obstruct you. Move on. Jump over it, walk over it, or crawl over it if you must. Get over it one way or another. You will become stronger as you get through more obstacles in life.
Talking about regrets, I myself currently have some regrets in life. Most of them were more the regret of not having done something than the regret of having done something.
They said that kind of regret is even worse.
If you do something and it turns out to be a bad decision, well, at least you’ve tried. No one is perfect. Failure is natural. It can happen.
If you don’t do something, and it turns out to be a bad decision, ugh that’s sad….you haven’t even tried anything to prevent it from happening.
Ouch.
If I could turn back time, I would like to go and correct 2 mistakes I’ve made. Or rather, to do what I’ve missed the chance to do. To take the actions I’ve always regret for not taking. And to at least try better in the situations, just so I wouldn’t have bashed myself as hard as I have before.
One example….
No, I’d rather not talk about this.
Let it be known just that one of my best friends, a pen friend, had died. I didn’t have a chance to bid her a farewell because I lost contact with her for about a year. I didn’t get to go to her funeral because I found out about her death a few months after. It took me one year to just get over the sadness of losing her, and 2 years total to stop bashing myself.
Why didn’t I do this? Why didn’t I consider that? Why haven’t I tried this? Why haven’t I got in touch with her more often? How could I be so self-obsessed and forget about her? Why did she have to die? How did she feel before she die? Could she remember about me near the end of her life? What would she think about me at that time? How lonely was she when I didn’t get in touch? Why did she leave me like this? How much pain had she endured in her mind?
There were sleepless nights, several sleepless nights when I buried myself in tears, thinking of nothing but her and these insane questions. It was endless, because there was no one to answer. And I, do not know the answer. Cannot find the answers to what I kept asking myself over and over again.
It’s been a hard time for me. Luckily I got passed it eventually. What was done was done. What wasn’t done cannot be done now. It’s over. It’s painful, but it’s over.
I cannot go back to correct the past. What I can do it do my best in the present, to guarantee a better future.
I learnt to not lose contact with my beloved ones.
I learnt to not procrastinate in getting in touch with my friends.
If I think of them, phone them, send them postcards, poke them, nudge them, nag them, bug them.
You know people can’t live forever, either you or your friends will die someday. Whoever die first, what counts isn’t how sad you are when deaths do your part, but how happy you were when you’re all still alive and are together.
I was sad. I was so damn sad. But what would she think if I keep crying? Of course she would be very sad to know. She might even regret that we got to know each other, because she brought great pain to me when she died. NO!!! I would never allow that thought to happen. No matter how sad I am now, I do treasure the time when we used to be friends. It was happy time. We had lots of fun together. I’m glad I made friend with her. It’s far, far better than not getting to know her at all. I would rather suffer this pain and sadness after, than to have never met her at all.
I am happy to know her.
I am proud to be her friend.
These thoughts helped me greatly in picking myself up and ending my self-pity period. Yeah I’m sad, I cry, I lost her. So what? What we had and what we did together were great. My friendship with her was one of the best ones in my life. We were happy to be friends. We got along so well. We had good time together. We did a lot of stuff together. We were great friends.
That, in itself, is sufficient, don’t you think?
Nowadays when I think of her, I no longer cry, but I smile and giggle. It was a very happy memory. And in my opinion, she would surely want to be remembered as a happy memory than a sad one. Of course who would want their friend to suffer because of them? I, for one, would cry if I find out I make my friend cry. So, I decided to cry no more about her.
Cherish your memory of friendship, and it shall never die. Persons pass away, but the love lives forever.
This also includes everyone around you, not just friends. Those you love, family, pets, whoever. If you love them, treat them well, stay close to them, spend as much time together as you could, so that in the end, you won’t regret or feel insufficient of love.
Peace & Love.
Tags: Rambling
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