Sabtu, 27 Agustus 2011

Viewing Death in a Positive Way

I have a new hobby now, watching documentaries, most of which I got from BBC. This new hobby surely broadens the horizon for me. I get to know more and more about big bang theory, evolution, creation of the universe, human body, psychology, and many more. I am always attracted by such things because back in my high school days, I was a natural sciences student. So, these documentaries help me to understand the things that the education system failed to provide back then. A good example would be a documentary series called BBC Human Body that spans seven big things in live every human being encounters from birth to death.
The first documentary showed that birth is the most dangerous thing every person has to experience, physically. But after watching all the films, especially the seventh part of the series (The End of Life), I would like to add something. The end of life is the most dangerous thing every person has to experience mentally. Eventually, every human will face his/her death. Based on what I saw in the seventh part, watching a person dying is surely an unpleasant experience.
The End of Life described the slow death that was experienced by a man named Herbie. He had got a cancer with the size of 2 soccer balls in his stomach. Herbie knew for sure that his time was coming so he asked for a euthanasia injection, but was refuted by the nurse as it is against the law there. That means he had to cope with the malignant cancer in his body until he died. Luckily, his wife Hannelore took good care of him day after day.
In the film, Herbie mentioned that he believed that dust turns to dust. He didn’t believe in the afterlife. That was why he wanted to savor every moment he had. He just enjoyed the short time he had on earth until he died in 1997. Her wife couldn’t even cry during his death. She said that she was happy for Herbie because he had been released from all the pain he had. I couldn’t agree more.
The question is simple, are we ready to face death as him? No. I believe nobody is ready to experience death. Here I don’t just talk about the death of our selves, but also the death of our loved ones, or the people that are close to us. So I’ve decided, just like Herbie I will enjoy and make the best of the rest of the time I have on earth. While I am healthy, I want to achieve great things. I don’t care if I make mistakes in the process, because life is all about making and correcting mistakes.