In the wee hours of the night, he woke suddenly with a tight pain across his chest. Finally, it is time, he smiled.
He had been waiting for this moment ever since the doctor had told him about the abnormal readings in his medical tests and his failing heart. As the physician tried to explain the seriousness of his condition with a sense of urgency, he smiled inwardly. For a long time, he had been researching ways to bring an end to what he considered a futile life without much pain. He was not afraid of dying, but he feared the consequences of his own actions for his children. Like their mother, he did not want them to hear people say that they were the children of a man who had taken his own life. He wanted them to remember their father as someone who had fought until the end. He had also made provisions for them through deposits and insurance policies, hoping that they would be adequately cared for at least until they became independent. Meanwhile, he knew that his absence would have little impact on his wife. He imagined that, once his body was taken away for cremation, she would return to her routine and perhaps even lead a better life.
However, all of a sudden, memories of his entire life began to flash before him. His first journey by train as a toddler, his miserable childhood, his turbulent youth, and the struggles involved in embracing a new life while trying to leave behind the misery of the past. Countless faces appeared before his eyes, as though on a cinema screen, each carrying expressions from moments long forgotten. He thought of his mother, for whom perhaps his absence would mean a great deal. Yet he knew that, in time, even her life would continue much better than before. Perhaps, if the fantasies of life after death were real, he wished his grandmother and father were waiting for him in another world, ready to hug their son with sorrow at his untimely departure.
He looked towards the door of the room. Although he usually kept it open at night, somehow he had forgotten to do so that evening. With some effort, he managed to get up and open it. It was raining. From the balcony, he could see his plants rejoicing in the heavenly shower. His immediate concern was who would water them after he was gone. The rented room would soon become someone else’s living space, and the beautiful ambience he had created would perhaps be replaced by something entirely different. Who would care for the plants? Who would notice when a leaf withered or a new bud appeared? He looked at the sky and closed his eyes, prayers trembling upon his lips.
He loved the earth and everything around. Even when thoughts of an inevitable death no longer frightened him, he could not escape the sadness of knowing that his eyes would never again witness its beauty. Amidst his miseries, he often travelled into the woods, spending hours listening to the subtle sounds of the wild. He bathed in forest streams and sat in meditation before the little temple nestled amidst the greenery. Yet, each time, the road he had travelled seemed to call him back, urging him, almost harshly, to return. There was little waiting for him beyond the laughter of his children. Even as he cherished those moments with them, the thought of their eventual departure from the nest remained in a silent corner of his mind. Life had taught him its essential nature, impermanence, something he had never wished to hold on to.
He wanted to speak to his children one last time, or perhaps kiss them on their foreheads in farewell and walk away gently, with silent steps. But they lived a mile away, and by now they must have been sleeping peacefully. He did not want to disturb their sleep. Perhaps, by morning, they would wake up to terrifying news. They were still too young to understand what death meant. He wished they would grow up believing that they had a father who loved them more than anything in his life, and that he was now living in another part of the world, remembering them every moment and watching over their lives as a silent blessing. Apart from what he had left them in the material world, what else could he give them?
He did not wish to return to the room and lie on the bed again. Instead, surrounded by the dense greenery of his balcony, he wanted to sit on the cane sofa, watching the raindrops fall and gazing at the distant sky. He waited for a silver line to appear on the horizon, a line that would bridge him to eternity. The pain was intensifying. He looked at the sky and smiled once again, a beautiful smile. Yet, from the corners of his eyes, a few drops of tears flowed silently towards the ground.
