Let Death be Your Guide

Facing mortality dissolves illusion, clarifies values, and urges for a fully lived life before regret becomes the final teacher

- By ANIL BHATNAGAR

In the stillness of the room, the faint hum of a ceiling fan feels like a heart beating against silence. Surrounded by his family, Aviral rests his head in his son's lap, his lips trembling as he whispers, "I thought death was for others, always distant, never mine.'

His voice breaks as he continues, “But now that it’s staring at me, I feel the pain of leaving you all behind.” His eyes well up with tears and his gaze fixed on his son. He pauses and and confesses, “What pains me more than death is the guilt—of dreams left unpursued, love unexpressed, and a life without purpose. I tossed away moments like pebbles, realising too late that they were diamonds.”

“Son, hold fast to your diamonds—don’t let them slip away.” With these words, the flame of Aviral’s life flickers out. Outside, a lone bird sings, as if in reminder that birth and death are as natural to the world as singing is to her. Still, in that timeless moment, a dying father passed to his son the essence of life. Aviral’s last breath still echoes: the real sorrow is not that we die, but that we never truly lived.