When People Die

I'm not gonna lie, this has been on my mind for quite a while. When you see someone die, slowly, inevitably, quickly, it will all bring your emotions to one center in your body—your brain, reflected by the heart. The living won't know for sure, but it's probably deep, dark, or maybe it's even blinding, comfortable, or a mixture of both. It's an infinite spiral of "what-ifs" and "what could possibly be".

Our knowledge only knows a depth that the greatest submarine who soared the deepest waters could dive, or the greatest space tool could reach. High on those clouds, we look up, always hopeful.

Because when people die, they're empty shells of their former selves. A vessel that once held a functioning mind and a beating heart. Able to judge for one's self and others, and beat for the body's sustenance and reciprocation of the feelings for another.

When people die, they leave us only a memory that will forever be etched in our minds. It may fade and wane as time puts its healing balm on the open wound, but, like a scar, it will stay there as a great reminder of what has been.

When people die, their eyes are often closed. They say it's the window to the beholder's soul. Now that there is none to look at, they are shut because what you see will not be the person that once resided in it, but stale organs who once served their mighty purpose.

When people die, they turn pale, ghoulish, bland, yellow, lifeless. They lose all the luster, elasticity, and color that a healthy body once provided for its master. The dead has no need for color, because like wilting flowers, they will simply be corpses who once walked the same soil we are stepping at. When they return to the earth, or stay in an urn, they are all just them—oblivious, carefree, and innocently naïve, done with the cursed form and the borrowed time.

Lastly, when people die, their skin feels like that of a ragdoll. It's heavy, thick, and cold. When you hold their hands, reality strucks you as somewhat odd. Life—it lets you enjoy what you have to the fullest because it's just like that. How a body that was once comfortably warm turn icy cold in a matter of moments is a curse that has befallen every man. When you run out of time, you are just another puppet whose strings got cut because the show is over. It's heavy, like a sullen reminder that you are not immortal, thick because death has long claimed your extremities, and cold—because you're part with the living has been fulfilled and your heart finally decided to take its vacation, fortunately or otherwise, forever.

One should cherish the life one has and to stop pondering about what lies beyond the existing plane. There is so much to do, with so little time. Even so, ironically, please: take all the time you need. Be patient and nice towards others. Wasting precious words on deaf ears while wearing black and white clothes, standing in front of the podium, stressing how you loved that person, would be very much appreciated if they could hear it with their own ears: understand with their own minds, and feel with their own beating hearts.

A quote that I still remember until now: "You only live once. But if you do it right, once is enough."