My good friend Kaveesh was killed when he was riding a scooter and he was hit by a drunk driver, in Goa. Though hard to reconcile the death of someone so young who had his whole life ahead of him, I can be thankful for the way he touched my life in such a positive way. He was from a privileged back ground and was fortunate to go to Harvard and spend some of his life experience in London, but he never boasted these facts, he was a very modest and a gentleman. I can’t begin to describe the feeling of loss I felt from his passing, the classic symptoms of grief; disbelief, anger and withdrawal. Coming to terms with the death of anyone who has touched my life is always tough, but I continue to believe that something positive can be learnt from bereavement.
On the other side of the world my granny lies in hospital waiting to die. She has lived for 90 years, almost an unimaginable amount of time. She has lived for many years on her own, really without enjoying her life, waiting and hoping to pass away. Its ironic to me that one person is ready to die and doesn’t and another is not ready to die and is taken away too early. It’s not fair. Now at least my granny can die in peace as she is granted the Liverpool Passage, which people like my granny who have no chance to improve their health are not kept alive and pass away some what peacefully without further health intervention. Personally I think there is a place for euthanasia in some circumstances, where there is no hope and life is just being dragged on regardless of whether that person wants to live or not.
In Nepal people here deal very well with death, there is a lengthy process of public grieving, which sometimes evens continues for a year, for example Hindu’s will not celebrate any festivals for a year after their parents have died and some may dress in white for a whole year and shave their hair off. Every year on the anniversary of the death of a close relative they will mark the occasion with special prayers. In my country though I think we deal with death in a very different way, very quietly. I prefer the Nepali way much more as I feel it really deals with loss and emotions attached to that.
In my life I have lost my father and my house mate Carl, two very big losses which have made a massive impact on my life and how I choose to live it. At an early age I learnt that life is short and that I have no idea how long I will be honoured with living in this world. That has spurred me on to try to live my life as fully as possible doing the things which make me happy and that I find rewarding for myself and in someway help others. I think that I have achieved that so far in my life and I will continue to do so and I am grateful for the insight that the passing of their lives brought to me.
In the words of my good friend Tan who had known Kaveesh for three decades;
“It's time to celebrate moments of life and death...especially of a soul who completed a wonderful journey.”
