When members of our family die, dear friends, people we loved, then something big dies in us. We feel in our very selves the transience of life and the brevity of our days. Yes, the brevity of our own days! We question ourselves about the length, the meaning and the beauty of life.
We all know that we are magnificent and fragile human beings. That the little dash between the date of our birth and date of our death makes sense if it is fulfilled with reality that transcends those limitations, the realities of love! It is good to think about immortality, especially in times when we are more conscious of our own finiteness, transience and the inevitability of departure! That life is more than the sojourn, that time is more than perpetuity?? That the body is more than a vessel of the soul.
With its departure the body is a body no more, time is time no more. The dimension of life is greater than all of its shackles. Death erases many things. With death many disappear, but death erases only unreal magnitudes while it strengthens and elevates authentic ones. We all thing about death. It is a part of our thoughts and the depth of our soul. Every poet, writer, philosopher, anyone who reflects on life also writes, thinks, and talks about death Death is a challenge to all our reflections!
"Death is not outside of me. It is in me from the very beginning: with me it grows at every moment. Some day I will halt, but it will grow further in me till it is completely throughout me to the very edge of me. My end is its true beginning: when it will reign on alone." (Death and I: A.B. Simic) Death produces a just man. For while "life equalizes all people: death reveals outstanding souls!" said the great Bernard Shaw. So often the greatness of a person is revealed only in death. That when a man dies, one would have to stand up, for "When a man dies an eye of the universe is closed." (Gustav Fechner, German physicist and philosopher). The great Croatian author Ivan Gundulic often wrote about it:
"Death does not look at anyone's face:
she oppresses all equally
poor house keepers
and those in royal palaces;
she aims at all the same
old and young, slaves and king. "
(Tears of the Prodigal Son)