Go With Dignity

How do you feel when you are at the fag end of you life? 

When the limbs don't move much. When the voice doesn't carry far. When your thoughts and memories are sometimes muddled. When your clear memories of events are at least 10 years old and most ones about 30 years or more. When your eyesight is not as sharp as it used to be. You think you hear noises and you exclaim, only to be told that there was no noise - just your imagination.

When you think of your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and reminisce the sweet times you had with them. You recollect some touching moments. And then with sadness you realize most of them are no more. 

Then you look at your children and their spouses and observe how they are with you. You may hence realize the mistakes you made, so many years back, towards your parents and parents in law. 
You can now understand the cryptic things they said because you, now, think the same things. If only you could go back in time and straighten out or do some corrections to things that you said and did.

Then you look at your grandchildren and wonder whether your children would be sensible and smart to do the right things for your grandchildren. If only your children respected you more instead of treating you as a person in a "pre-crematorium" stage.

But then you are tired. You get tired so often. You lie down. 
You have always been a positive person. You think of how much time it has taken to tone down the few negative, bitter thoughts you had of some people. You have outlived most of them.

You think back to your first love. To the day your baby was born. And how much effort you put in to take care of the family.

You remember your earliest memory. Of going to preprimary school. Making your first friend. How much you cried going to school the next day. You memory fast forwards and rewinds to interesting points in your life. To weird things you were told about other family members and friends. You chuckle at some of the things you said or heard about others.

And now your day is not too far. You know each time when you go to sleep, you may not wake up again. You also know you are getting ready for it. You know that you have done all that you could for your family and children. You worry thinking of how your children will feel when they arrive at the stage that you are at now. You hope the "purvapunya" that you have accumulated will be of use at that time.

You hope you will go with dignity. You wonder whether you will feel the heat as you are cremated. You chastize yourself not to think such silly thoughts.
You wonder whom you will meet on the other side. And whether you will you be treated well. This journey to the other side becomes your life. You can't do any more preparation for it.