Life

I found out today that one of my JC juniors passed away during his pilot training in America. I am astounded and shocked. I thought it was a joke when I saw the Facebook group "May you rest in peace – Sanstav Paul". This is horrible. I still cannot believe it.

I cannot express what I feel in words. Since I don’t even know what I feel. How do you face something like death? Someone you knew yesterday is there no more. Someone who came online till yesterday will do so no more. How? Why? Why??

I hope God gives his family and friends strength to get through this. May he rest in peace.


A brief candle; both ends burning
An endless mile; a bus wheel turning
A friend to share the lonesome times
A handshake and a sip of wine
So say it loud and let it ring
We are all a part of everything
The future, present and the past
Fly on proud bird
You're free at last.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.

Beth could not reason upon or explain the faith that gave her courage and patience to give up life, and cheerfully wait for death. Like a confiding child, she asked no questions, but left everything to God and nature, Father and Mother of us all, feeling sure that they, and they only, could teach and strengthen heart and spirit for this life and the life to come.
~ Louisa May Alcott in Good Wives

Years, following years, steal something every day;
At last they steal us from ourselves away.
~ Horace

In any man who dies there dies with him
his first snow and kiss and fight....
Not people die but worlds die in them.
~ Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "People"

He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
~ Antoine de Saint-Exupery

We understand death for the first time when he puts his hand upon one whom we love.
~ Madame de Stael

After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure.
~ J.K. Rowling