Everyone knows that even the longest day has its evening. One day we all have to hand in our checks. Our body is merely the old, tattered, worn-out vehicle in which we travel many miles and years. In the autumn of the journey we look out of the window and fear the dark clouds gathering over the horizon. These clouds are going to stay and undoubtedly they would lead us towards the dark tunnel. We found the write-up on the wall – the match had its half-time and now the player has to go back to pavilion. It is indeed a very sad time. It is easy to look back now. We stand at the very edge and see the other side beckoning. The body is beset with aches and pains and in the fullness of time our physical organs begin to fail. We know that the bell is tolling.
Roman Emperor Augustus said on his death bed: “Did I play my role well? If so, then applause, because the comedy is finished.”
The last words of famous Italian statesman Cesare Borgina were: “I’ve taken care of everything in the course of life, only not for death, and now I’ve to die completely unprepared.”
Bronnie Ware, an Australian nurse, has spent several years in palliative care (help given to alleviate the sufferings of dying patients). She had begun to write her blog about the last wish of many patients and called it – “Inspiration and Chai.” It became so popular that she compiled her observations in the form of a book – “The top five Regrets of Dying.” According to Bronnie, when those patients were asked about any regrets they had or anything they would differently, the following five regrets they expressed:
- I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
- I wish I had not worked so hard.
- I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
- I wish I had stayed with my friends.
- I wish I had let myself be happier.
It is interesting here to quote the last words of Kurt Cobain: “I don’t have the passion anymore, and so remember, it is better to burn out than to fade away.”
This scribe is at pains to look this subject from a different angle. In the sunset of life, we want to experience peace, joy and stillness to savor the bitter cup: we are vacating either as a winner or as a loser! Everyone wants that the world should remember him as a successful man / woman after his / her death. In the meadows of life we were fiercely chasing the mirage called success. It was the achievement – the goal of life. Success meant financial security, admiration, awe, aura, love, beautiful wife, smart kids and freedom from fear and frustrations. But the real Success means real happiness, self respect and satisfaction from life.
The dying statement of the most successful French philosopher, existentialist, writer and revolutionary Jean Paul Sartre was – “I failed.”
Leonardo do Vinci, the famous painter of Mona Lisa said, “I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have.”
The most pathetic are the last words of Henry the Eight: “So now all is gone – Empire, Body and Soul.”
We, the ordinary mortals have smaller issues to deal with and we have had to handle the problems of limited magnitude. We have our own small worlds and small domains to tackle, in our own way and with our limited means. At the end phase we try to recollect what we had lost and what we have gained in the course of life. Simple calculation! In fact we have now left with no choice but simply entrust ourselves to the unseen. In old age as in everything else, there are no standard mile stones. Some grey at the age of 30, and others proudly bear a head full of black hair at 70. Some have their skin as wrinkled and folded as raisin’s. Other still carry youthful sheen and smoothness in 70’s. Some are bent over, others are as straight as lamp-post. Some lose their memories and ramble on disconnectedly. Others are alert and active as they were in their prime. Some fold up like umbrella by 50 – 60’s while others continue to trample to freeway of life, contributing, creating, achieving and being. Age doesn’t ravage them. Instead, it gives varnish and impart certain mellow radiance to their persona. They retain a serene, solicitous composure.
It is most important to remember that with the age physical agility may go down but the level of joy and sense of being alive need not go down. If our level of joy and aliveness is going down, it is as if we are committing suicide in instalments. Our lives should expand with age, and not contract. By meeting and conquering each of life’s vicissitudes we expand in strength, courage, joy, happiness, love and internal qualities. As things fall out in the external world; health becoming frail, spouse dying, retirement separating us from a busy life, our internal life must accelerate in power and intensity with an intense faith and ‘never-say-die’, ‘do-what-it-takes’ attitude. We have to weather the storms.
Let us remember the last words of Sir Isaac Newton: “I don’t know what I may seem to the world. But as to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore and diverting myself now and then finding a small pebble or a prettier shell than the ordinary, while the great world of truth lay undiscovered.”
