I want to be alive till I am alive

If I die today, everyone else’s life will still go on. My husband might go back to work a week later? Or two weeks later? Maybe a month later. But he will go back. His days will fill up again with emails and work calls and presentations and deadlines. He will sleep in my bed. He might have trouble sleeping. But eventually, he will go to sleep. My side of the bed will be empty. I don’t how that would make him feel. It’s a large bed for just one person. There will be two kindles in the room. One won’t be used anymore. He might give it to someone else. I don’t know what he will do with my clothes. So many of them. We plan to learn French together and join dance classes too. I don’t know how he will do that. He might eventually learn French. But I won’t be there to see him speak.

If I die today, everyone else’s life will still go on. My parents will still look after my younger siblings. My mother will wake up and make breakfast for everyone else. She might miss me while making bhindi paratha but she will still make it. My father would still go to work, get my siblings educated and one day will get them married too. I won’t be there in their wedding album. But everyone else will be there. Dressed up and smiling.

I recently saw a 14-year-old die of COVID-19. I met him two months ago. His voice keeps ringing in my head. He was polite and soft-spoken. The way he greeted me when we last met made me feel like he was fond of me and it felt nice because I didn’t know that before. I wanted to talk to him but he was playing with other kids so I chose to just stay there and watch them. The world was not normal even then. I used to be mostly in my room. My only solace was to watch dogs and kids play on the road in the evening. So I stood there and watched him play. His face was red when he was sweating. I never knew a lot about him. But I saw him as a baby and then also watched him grow up. He was on a ventilator for a week. I was scared but the thought of his death did not occur to me. Then one afternoon I got a WhatsApp message from my mother saying that he is no more. It’s been two weeks since he died. I heard from my father yesterday that his father is starting office from today.

Last week my husband’s colleague died. He was 35. My husband and I have talked about him multiple times in the last two years. I have never met him but I know how he was at work. I know what kind of conversations he used to have during lunch. I have seen his pictures. I have seen pictures of his wife and kids. His last messages to my husband were mostly about how his oxygen level is not increasing despite medical support. I keep wondering if he saw it coming. If he knew he was going to die.

I am 26 years old. Thinking about death is not new for me. I got really sick once in the pre-pandemic world. I was 21 then. It was a sudden rare sickness because of which I had to be in the ICU for two days; or three days. I am glad I don’t remember the details anymore. However, I remember how it felt to be there. I remember how badly I wanted to survive and live. I remember being terrified of death. The world was normal back then. Forgive me for saying that, but it was normal for people with privileges.

A lot has changed now. Every alternate day I hear about people dying. People who are friends of friends or someone who I knew through social media, or someone who I had met but was not in touch anymore. I hear about zoom funerals. There is no pattern now. No, they did not have comorbidities. No, they were not old. They were neither careless nor unhealthy. There is no pattern. They, who died, were no different from you and me.

It does not seem abnormal to contemplate death, does it? My mind craves for hope. But I don’t know where to look for it. On some days I wake up feeling grateful. Grateful for being alive. But then it does not take long before the thought crosses my mind that why me and not them? Why do I continue to live? And why did they have to die? There are no answers. Planning life seems silly now. Living in present makes sense like it never did before. I want to be alive till I am alive. That’s the only plan, I guess?