Affairs of death and funeral.

Recently an old woman visited me for some consultation. A lady in her 80’s had a peculiar anxiety, which is common at that age. It was her funeral. While she had one son and several rich daughters she was living alone with her husband. While the elderly couple had drawn their Will for disposal of whatever little they had, she had this problem as to who will attend her funeral and who will not. Her anxiety was that perhaps due to non-communication among here children, nobody may like to inform the son or he may not like to come at all. For those who do not know, in India, especially among Hindus there is a belief that it is important that son should perform the last rites. However when I asked about this reason she refused and plainly stated that she did not follow her dogma. My next question was that how it matters, as to what happens, when you are gone? She had no answer. Nor do I.

I asked another question, did you have vibrating relationships with your siblings at your middle age or now, if some of them are surviving? The answer was a long explanation which meant ‘No’. I could not take courage to remind her that if she had explanation for her aloofness in relationships, so do her children and she should now leave them alone.

Does it really matter how people conduct their affairs after I have gone? If I am this body then after death I do not exist. Nor can I claim any right, over this body because ‘I’ is dead. And If I do not exist how come that I can still have relatives or anything to cling at all? On the other hand I am not this body and I survive the death, than I will manage my affairs then and there. Why this anxiety before the event? But I think we all want to be sure about this enigma called death. Perhaps the control freak within, wants to control the death as well. This anxiety has created the civilization, the rituals, the religions and of course  the science.

Just another lazy thought on lazy Sunday.

© Sandeep Bhalla