Death - A True Lover

I do not remember the first time I heard the word death. I do not remember what questions I asked my parents about what it means to die, to be dead, or where we go when we die. But I remember very clearly the moment I met Death for the first time.  I know how ruthlessly, it broke my little heart.

I was playing with my dolls when I heard her arrival. I do not remember exactly what it was like, maybe a thak or a tak. But I remember watching a bird fall after striking the ceiling fan of our veranda, and running to pick it up. I watched it die in my little hands. I failed to notice then, but now that I think of that little bird, she was smaller than both my hands put together. Every time I revisit that moment, I know I would have done anything to watch it come alive and reunite with its bird friend, who kept coming back to our veranda for days, searching.

This was my first encounter with Death. Since then, it has interrupted many of my days, looked me in the eye, smiled, and snatched away someone I love. I should hate her or fear her. But I do not, or rather, I cannot, because with each of her visits, I fell more in love with Life, Love, and Experience.

I have always believed that if Death were a person, she would be a woman in her late twenties, wearing a black slip dress with blood red lipstick. She would sound like time ticking as she walks slowly toward you in her black stilettos, determined, yet unhurried.

Atticus writes, “I hope to arrive at my death late, in love, and a little drunk.” And I write: I hope that when Death makes her final visit to me, she arrives full of love, admiration, and even a hint of jealousy, and before she takes my hand, she says, “I have been watching and waiting. It is an honor, my love.”

— Anshu Rajput