How fragile is life

I was recently re-introduced to the fragility of life when my mother fell ill and was rushed to hospital. Thankfully, she emerged out of the ordeal unscathed and is currently convalescing at home.

Yet it got me thinking. It takes a lifetime to build a life yet it takes only a second to take one away. The next second may be the last.

Prior to my mother’s episode, I was rocked by the news that a friend had jumped to his death. Granted, I hardly knew him yet I never saw it coming. In fact, most of us did not. We were left with unanswered questions and regrets that we failed to spot his inclinations to end his life and perhaps to have pulled him back to where he rightfully belongs. A life.

On a fateful day of July 7th 2006, I had my own brush with death when a rogue decided to plunge a knife into me. Had he had any deadly intentions, I would surely have perished.

We only live once. What is here today may no longer be here tomorrow. A life sullied with regrets is poignant. It may be cliché but the phrase “at least I tried” brings closure and peace. Somebody who has never experienced failures would never fully savor the sweetness of success.

A dream is only impossible because we think it to be. An impossible dream becomes a reality because we want it to be. I may be scoffed at, I might be ridiculed, I might be downright dismissed but it does not stop me from aspiring to be a writer. My detractors do not dictate my life. They do not shape my future. I do. I believe. You should too.

Slow down. Look around you. How long have you not looked into the eyes of the people you love and tell them that you loved them? I cannot yet bring myself to tell my parents that I love them; I hope I may one day. I choose now to allow my actions to show that I do care, that I do not take them for granted, that despite their imperfections, they were the ones who gave me life, the ones who made sacrifices to bring me up and mould me into what I am today. For that, I am eternally grateful and in debt, to the day they leave for a better place. And I never will know when that day would be.

Sometimes, all we get is one opportunity. Once gone, a second might never come. Today may be all we got. Make it count.