DEATH, JUST A WHISPER AWAY

Life is impermanent, life and death are separated by just a whisper!
Easy said, surely, but when you experience this by yourself you can see such a simple fact under a complete different a new light.

Sunday, January 15th, 9 a.m. I was riding my bicycle towards Rattana Buri’s internet shop when I have been hit by a pick up truck, going at a very fast speed.
In fact after hitting me the car hit first the right sidewalk just to stop at the left side, not before having hit two scooters as well.

I found myself on the ground, body in pain, some people gathering around me wondering what did happen to me.

I am not going to write anything more about the accident itself as I have been lucky and there are so many more people out there who suffer much more than what I did, this is not the point.

This is about my reflections. After the shock, when my body pain started to surface I just realized that I’ve been a whisper away from death. Would I have crossed the road 5 seconds later I would have probably been dead.
Is the line between life and death so thin? Yes it is.
I was planning to use the motorbike to reach the Internet shop, but at the last minute I decided for the bike, what a huge difference this could have made!
What do seem meaningless decisions may instead have a huge bearing in our life, isn’t it amazing?

Most of us, we are living in the illusion that we control our life, but this is the biggest lie we are living in, we pretend to control our life but we absolutely are not.

Everything may change in a second, personally I could have been dead or on a wheel chair right now, and this would not have been my responsibility or mistake, just it did happen.
Personally I did not see it coming, it was just another quiet Sunday morning in Bannok.
My thought then went to the ones who really did suffer because of tragedies such as an earthquake, the Tsunami huge tragedies that came out of nowhere, maybe just to remind human beings that we can not control life and its flow.

Is so funny when I think about my wife and kids worries’ about my never ending travelling mainly by air, by the infamous Indians trains, buses or car… and I nearly died just riding my bike in a rather desert road… yes life is impermanent and unpredictable too.

After a while, when I was lying in my bed I really felt so lucky to be still alive, the thought that Sunday 15th of January could have been my last day on earth started to creep in.
I realised it could have been the last time I saw my wife, I spoke to my kids, I saw the sun and my village.
I did not feel afraid or did panic, just I felt lucky and I felt the urge to send a sms to all my beloved ones… I LOVE YOU… was the simple text, just to let them know what I was thinking.

And I realised how many chances I let go to tell the ones I love how I feel for them, taking everything for granted, like I will always be here or they will always be here … like I would be in control of my life.

But I ain’t!

BAN NAUDOM, 17th of January, 2549