It has been a surreal time – 5 hours sail to get home, 3 hour turnaround, 3 hour midnight drive to Auckland, 3 hours flight to Brisbane, 8 hours flight to Singapore and then an hour to Kuala Lumpur, a total of 27 hours from leaving home to my destination…my determination to make it for a very dear friend’s wake and funeral.
In my cynical youth, I used to think why do people make such a fuss of funerals, it’d be better to make time for the person when they are alive. I now know that funerals are so important for the living, for the family members to know how much the person was loved. And, for the deceased spirit to know that too. Because Covid had disrupted lives separated by distance (I hadn’t seen my friend for almost 5 years), I was determined to personally send my friend off this earthly realm. My friend is an angel sent to Earth and she is just returning to whence she came.
Every life comes to an end, and each of us have our own believe of what happens thereafter. I’ve no doubt that the question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ has arisen before many of us at different times in life – from utter desperation and despair to deep introspection at more quiet moments of our life. We will never know the truth till when it is time.
But I can’t help thinking that life seems so meaningless if a lifetime of learnings from our pain and suffering or the joys experienced from sharing and giving, all end in an abyss of nothingness. Brought up in Daoist Buddhist wisdoms in a Muslim country, attended Methodist and Catholic missionary schools and many close friends of all faiths including the Jewish faith, I found an answer for myself that is in congruence with the path I want to lead.
I believe that we are meant for several lifetimes and each one is an opportunity to learn and grow until such time we join the universal consciousness. Our knowledge that evolves into wisdom is encapsulated in the spirit that transcends lifetimes. We may not have the memory of events but there are many signs of a memory of wisdom spirit – think of the children you’d met that are such old souls and the wisdom compassion beings you meet in your life…
Fly my dearest friend, fly… you are free once again.
