What would you do if today were your last?
The only thing certain is the uncertainty of life!
Everything around me that I could lay my eyes on, was white. Nurses and doctors marched from one bed to another with food and medication. The heart rate monitors showed green seismic graphs on a pitch-black screen. Nobody knew when the display would turn into a single horizontal green line with a beep sound.
Maybe today, maybe tomorrow?
The Wockhardt hospital is one of the best in South Mumbai and I’m one among the 11,506 chosen by the deadly virus. The first case of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in the Indian state of Maharashtra was confirmed on 9 March 2020. The state has confirmed a total of 11506 cases, including 485 deaths and 1,879 recoveries, as of 1 May 2020.
It seems like the virus has no mercy. The containment zone is now filled with newborn babies to old lads in their nineties. The rich, the humble, the confused, the strong-willed are all put in identical beds right next to each other. The difference between them is not the amount of money they made in life or the kind of friends they had or the color of the car they owned, but just the number on their tags separated by identical huge white curtains between the beds.
The ward is a war field and the doctors are soldiers who are fighting for us. Not with weapons, ammunition, tear gas or bullets that could pierce tanks. The enemy is too strong to be killed by any or even all of these combined. There is no bloodshed, cracked ribs, or loss of human limbs. The virus would attack the most important defense weapon of the chosen person — his immune system.
It’s like leaving a soldier on the open battlefield without a weapon and watching him die slowly with nothing in his hand to defend himself from the enemy.
However, everyone here had their own battles to fight and I had mine.
Three weeks ago on 10 April 2020, I have diagnosed with symptoms of cough and fever and the tests came positive the day after. Little did I know that the ‘not-so-perfectly-round’ rotis and the daal that had a bit more salt than the usual would be the last meal I would have, peacefully, sitting on our dining table in the veranda of my home. From that day onwards, I’ve been having more medicines than food. I’ve never seen the face of the nurse who brings me soup every single day. Nurses are supposed to wear PPE’s that include a headcover, a mask, gloves, eye protection, safety footwear and face shields that leave nothing but the pair of eyes visible. But her eyes tell me more than she could ever tell me by words. Her eyes appeal to me to have confidence, stay brave and fight my way through this battle! Those eyes show me the genuine smile underneath the face shields and white masks.
They give me hope.
I was never the kind of person who listened to people through their eyes. I had always given weight to the words spoken by a person. But these three weeks had given me enough time to realize that the eyes tell us a lot about a person than they could ever express in a conversation filled with mighty words. It’s like a window into their thoughts, perspectives, reasons and motive. It’s a gateway to the soul.
I now realize how the littlest of things can make a huge difference in life-A kind gesture to a stranger, a ‘good morning’ to the neighbors, a stroke of love for your pets, a ‘thank you’ to the waiter, a piece of advice to a friend, a hug to a dear one, a kiss to a lover and just a smile for a mother.
We never know which day would be our last. Which one would be the last meal with our loved ones, which one would be the last goodbye we’d say to a dear one?
Muhammad Ali has rightly said, “Live every day as if it were your last because someday you’re going to be right.”
Often we get carried away in the race of life that we forget to pause for a moment and appreciate what we have at hand. We are so focused on seeing what lies dimly at a distance that we forget what lies clearly right next to us. When people were questioned as to what they would do if they were given just one more day to live, some of their answers are quite astonishing. The answers on quora say that they’d listen to their favorite music that they haven’t in a long time or ring up a friend that they haven’t spoken to in years or hug their loved one and whisper in their ears expressing how blessed they feel to have that person in life for the very moment.
Reading all those answers I was able to get the spotlight on one of the major realizations that had ever hit me — “to live in the moment and to take action before dusk as every dawn brings a new life to a wise man. To live one day at a time”
I now pictured life as an hourglass, there are thousands of grains of sand in the top of the hourglass and they all pass slowly and evenly through the narrow neck in the middle. Nothing you and I could do would make more than one grain of sand pass through this neck without impairing the hourglass. We start each day with numerous tasks and many important people. And we live each day unable to focus what is at hand and postpone things, gestures, and talks to the future. Someday the number of grains on the top will be piled up so much that the hourglass is bound to break. And we live each day clueless about this one last doomsday that will end it all.
And I felt today was mine.
My lungs had given up functioning; my immune system had no more fight left; my body was exhausted and my mind had just accepted death. It was 6 A.M of 3 May 2020 and the nurse brought my usual soup, but there was a difference in her eyes for she knew I had no more fight left in me.
2 hours later I started experiencing severe breathing difficulty though I had artificial support. At 8:15 A.M my bed was surrounded by doctors trying everything they can on a 50-kilo body that was now barely bones and flesh. I felt a sudden disconnection from all the noise in the hospital, from all the desperate trials by the doctors. I closed my eyes and I had a flashback of 22 years of hustling in life. As I opened my eyes, all I could hear was a faint beep.
The beeping increased in magnitude and hit a flat high note.
I woke up gasping for breath as my mom splashed a mug of cold water on my face. “Uth gyi heroine? Now help me out with the rotis, its 9 A.M already!” I laughed and gave her a good morning hug. She was taken by high surprise and her eyes widened. Little does she know about my dream?
P. S 14 hours later here I’m writing an article on it and also the rotis weren’t round today, but I didn’t complain.
The real question now is — What would you do if today were your last?
