MARX has a halo

This post is not political in any sense but I just wanted to share with all of you some thoughts I’ve been having about life and death in the past few days. It is the most amazing feeling when you end a long day with some new thoughts that never entered your mind before; it’s like a breath of fresh air. 

A few quick words to clarify and update you all on what’s been going on: My aunt died on the 14th of August of pancreatic cancer. And in our culture it is a widely practiced custom that the funeral is three days long and is usually in the deceased’s home. So for the last 3 days I have been attending the funeral and supporting my cousins in their time of need. 

Before I go on to the whole point of this post I would like to say to my dear cousins Fahed, Yasmine, Amani and Khalid that your mother was a wonderful woman. She always filled the room with her warm smiles that made my day no matter what. She was definitely a strong woman; a role model for all women. I deeply respect her. And don’t forget that we love you guys and will always be there for you! May god rest her soul in peace. 

So before this turns into my usual long post I would like to move on. 

Throughout my whole and entire life I always considered death to be a trivial matter. What’s the point of worrying about death when we are all living on earth, living ‘life’? It’s more important to concentrate on life rather than death because the unknown will never be known so… what’s the point? I’d rather immerse myself in the wonders of the known! But slowly I came to understand that life and death are not two separate things to experience but an interconnected journey. And I saw a bit of the connection today. 

While at the funeral for the last three days, all I heard was talks about death, the philosophy of religion and the connection between the former and the latter. And I thought to myself: why are people so fascinated by all this death talk? What the hell is up with all this? It’s so stupid. Why waste life talking about death? 

Then I realised something while I was watching my cousins throughout these few days. The funeral was actually for them. It was for their own benefit. It dawned on me that if my aunt wasn’t blessed with this massive funeral (and if funerals didn’t exist in general) with large amounts of people coming to talk to them about the details of death and how to deal with it they would be coming home to an empty house. A house filled with memories of their mother and no one to greet them—how difficult would that be? I guess society has done something great for once. With this whole funeral ordeal they would be occupied for the majority of the first difficult days. They would be facing the beginning of a new part of their lives with all of this support, love and humanity. 

I guess that even when it comes to death there are beautiful things to it too: within the realm of life, that is. So it’s not all unknown and sadness. It’s also about the humanity that comes with it. “Look at all of these people here to say goodbye to my beloved aunt; all the people here to support my family” I thought. “It’s so beautiful to see that even when it comes to the most difficult part of live there are great things to see”. 

To pull this all together, what I mean to say is that life and death are part of a whole journey. I still think that immersing one’s self in the now is more important than worrying about something that may be far into the future. But now I see it a bit differently. The whole ordeal that comes with the death of the loved one is a little peak into their journey too. And we are all in it together. The whole world is in this journey together.