Assalamu Alaykum (Peace be upon you all)
I was still conducting my history taking with a patient in the out-patient department under TCVS (Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery) when I received a sad news. A good friend of mine died just the morning of that day in the hospital.
Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raajiun. (Indeed we are from Allah and to Him we shall all return)
He was still young, around his 20s. He was a cheerful classmate, a very good-natured guy. And above all else he was a humble, righteous and sincere Muslim brother. He died on a blessed Friday which is a wonderful sign. He lived a short yet satisfied life. May Allah be pleased with him and his deeds and accept him with His boundless mercy. May Allah lighten his grave and make things easy for him to enter Jannah in sha Allah. Allahumma ameen. And May Allah make our deaths as peaceful and as blessed as that wonderful brother had.
Indeed life is nothing but a fleeting hour-glass just waiting for that last grain to drain out. Each of us has our own designated time to "expire", to rest and end all things then and there. We may have different lifespans, some die young some die too old. And all of these are already predestined by Allah (God). Everything has been planned. All we are left to do is wait for our own designated time to come.
We all know these undeniable reality: All men must die. Nobody will live forever. No one will turn into stone and stay forever in this worldly life. We must all taste death as what was mentioned in the Noble Qur'an
And yet, here we are human beings, living our life like we have all the time in the world. We pretend and deceive ourselves that we will live forever. We treat life as it if it's already eternal, everlasting, unending... We try to fool ourselves that death is "still faraway. Little do we know that sooner or later, we will be the next one in line. We all forget these things as we become too preocupied with all the things we plan to do in the future. We tend to forget to ask "I wonder if I will die today? What will happen to me and all these things I am working so hard for?"
And on the "Medical professionals" setting...
After being witnesses to different kinds of deaths and life-and-death situations here in the hospital, there are times that we, health professionals would tend to belittle the message of death. We see patients succumb to death almost everyday. We see family members mourn over their loved ones. We do express and extend our condolences at times, but it all end up there. We move on to our next living patient and try to keep ourselves busy hoping that the idea of another death will just fly away. But it wont. It will stay right there. Death is normal part of our life. We just have to be prepared for it when the time (our time) comes.
Perhaps through these series of incidents of deaths of loved ones, of acquaintances and friends... that we may be reminded about life and it's fleeting deadline: grains continuously flowing until the appointed time comes up. Maybe perhaps after knowing that somebody you know died, you will tend to pause and reflect, look at things differently. That "Hey! I have a deadline! I might be next! I won't live forever here! I have to spend this little amount of time I have left to things that are important and meaningful. Those things that would last forever and those things that I could bring with me even after the graveyard."
We have different ways of interpreting the statement of "Spend your life well". But perhaps we can all agree that the actions we take to accomplish that statement must answer the question "Is the life you are living now worth dying for?"
Let us spend this wonderful gift called "Life" meaningfully.
And may Allah accept all our deeds and give us meaningful lives. Allahumma ameen.
Salam Kasilasa,
Anakiluh
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