Nine Lives

death is the most certain thing in the world,
we should be ready to accept it, I didnt cry on my grandmothers death though I was a kid then but still, I know it has to happen and it happened, I can only pray for her and that i did crying make no sense at all
be happy and live every moment as it is your last one.

Thank you for bringing up death. Here is a fact of life each one of us will experience ( ourselves and of others), but something that is hardly ever examined voluntarily. As people age,many are forced to examine death, partly because of the many losses they suffer, including the loss of health and of loved ones.

To protect ourselves we usually make efforts to either make it a distant phenomenon ( as in the doctor`s rationalizations), or focus on life (at soyems one can hear the relatives describing the last day of the deceased in the minutest details, carefully forgetting everything that followed), or simply deny it`s inevitability by avoiding any thoughts about death.

Re: saeed jaffer

Thank you for your response. Have you ever read ``Refuge`` by Terry Tempest Williams? She writes about her mother`s fight with cancer, and the lesson she comes away with is similar to what you have said: that perhaps the best way to deal with a loved one`s impending death is to help them accept it, rather than to struggle with it. Williams spends most of the book trying to fight her mom`s disease, while her mom pleads to be allowed to live with it.

But isn`t all that easier said than done? How can one just fold one`s hands and say, ``Allah ko jo manzoor,`` when the life of a loved one is concerned? I understand that a good Muslim attitude at least requires such acceptance. But I think it is only human to try to fight death.

Of course, such a fight, even if it is for the life of another, is purely selfish. We are trying to hang on to someone because WE do not want to lose them. It is all just selfishness and fear. Knowing that, however, why do we continue to struggle against the inevitable?

Re: Saeed

``It is ironic how a loved ones death is so difficult to swallow, but the death of all the nameless faceless people as described in the media only bring a transient sympathy.``

This doesn`t strike me as ironic, but rather the way of the world. I can cry tears for plane crash victims, children kidnapped and murdered, and people shot and killed in Karachi, but I don`t think it will affect me personally as much as, say the death of a parent or sibling. My parents have spent half their lives with me and they`re closer to me than 99.9999999% of the world`s population will ever be. When they`re gone, it will be a much deeper hurt than the death of ``nameless faceless people``.

- Bina

Nice article. Well written. Made me think.

It is ironic how a loved ones death is so difficult to swallow, but the death of all the nameless faceless people as described in the media only bring a transient sympathy.

This also makes me think of how it feels as a caretaker when the person under your care dies. It`s an odd feeling. It was very hard at first to see them go, but soon you realize that what you can best to do to help is not to try and salvage them from what is going to happen, but to mediate the process into one that is easier to deal with.

Dogs downstairs. Not very rabbit friendly. :) Also, roof had high walls, this bunny was particularly smart and found his way up.

Mashae - your words mean a lot to me, especially since we`ve wrestled with many poignant matters together. While i may sound flippant here sometimes, my fear of losing my loved ones is very real. The cats truly define the period when i first had to confront this fear of the deaths of others. It preys on my mind: I sometimes feel like I have a countdown clicking in my head...only so much time left, it says. I wrote this story from the heart. It is, however, not quite complete yet, perhaps in every sense of the phrase.

As for your last comment - my fame will probably be just by association to people at Brandeis! : ) But since we share the same brain, could i claim fame through MACgill also?

AA - Do accept my sympathies for your soft dead roof-thumping rabbits. Empress Market is a harsh teacher of the circle of life indeed. That cycle holds not just for rabbits but for soft dead vegetables as well.

I can`t help but wonder, though, whether your bunny mortality rate might have been lower if you`d kept the little creatures off the roof?

- Kaukab J.

hey there, koki :). good to see this here. the poignancy, especially. brings back memories id rather not know i still had. memories that arent worth keeping because they make you feel bad more than they could ever make you feel anything else, but theres no way to erase that which leaves you scarred. god knows, weve all tried :). this does, however, remind me again and again of who it is that youre working with at brandeis. that could be a good thing if you get that famous too :).

Dear kaukab;
My condolences. I relate completely and have always resisted from touching hard, dead pets. While we`re on the subject and since you ponder cats and death, I`ll use your article as a forum to remember some of my own pets.

When I was in class 2, I was getting ready for school, I heard a thump, and then a second thump. I looked outside from my parents room and saw that my little bunny rabbit had fallen from the roof which was on the third floor. A brave little creature, he managed to climb the roof wall and nibble at palm tree leaves. A dumb little creature, he had no concept of heights. He died soft in my hands. I remain indelibly marked.

Another little bunny died when my cousin and brother shifted dicarded furniture around on the roof. Some slipped. And so did my bunny. By now I had hardened in my sense of reality. Rabbits die. They are replaced by new ones. New ones purchased from Empress Market.

While I threw tantrums, my brother got a little Blackie, or was it a Brownie, Pinky, Whitey?.. from Empress Market`s smelly pet and animal section. The circle of life continues.