Fragmented thoughts..

“You are not bothered, are you ?” asked my wife to me.

She is going through some BIG stress. She talked her issues at office to me since I can understand it. Yes, things at her work looked something stupid but at the end, I told her some silly thing that happened to me that day. That was when she asked me that.

Well, she had genuine reasons to get stressed or worried, I understand. But sometimes I (unnecessarily?) go logical and here too I saw some logical reasons. Well, I can’t tell that to her, so I just shared her concerns and tried to dilute the stress.

We can be philosophical with others but when something happens to our dear ones, we worry. Its natural, I guess. Its kind of bad time, it looks like. Stress stress and more stress.. I just got a news letter I subscribe and it read like this:

“These are stressful times. Whether it’s the latest economic news, personal health issues, family problems, or world events, you are faced with challenges that can cause stress. Stress has been linked to heart disease and stroke, influences cancer and respiratory diseases, and can trigger asthma, arthritis, and gastrointestinal problems…….”

The swine flu finally reached my city too. Today, I sent my son to school, as usual and then I came to know that they closed school for 5 days (I got the SMS message from school bit late. He waited for his school bus and finally came back since the bus did not come). Death of couple of kids can add stress to parents.. Death is the ultimate reality (though we can come back) but its very hard to digest when someone close to us dies.

Sometimes some kind of people can give us more stress that too at bad times. I have a friend who goes very philosophical (but lives truly materialistic) and says ‘everything has a reason’ whenever I fell ill or shared my worries. But the typhoons in her country, her illness, her family issues…..such things were ‘big issues’ for her. She was sad the other day when her country’s former president died of colon cancer (she was 76). That time, I deliberately went philosophical and said :

“people die and it needs a reason”.

As I expected, my friend did not like that and avoided me for couple of days. I was thinking of my father that time. He was damn healthy. I have never seen him falling sick with flu or cold or any such seasonal diseases (at least I don’t remember not even a single instance other than his last days). But he died at the age of 55 !.

Anyway, I think it is better we don’t go philosophical when somebody is in heart mode than head mode. Now I think it was good that I wasn’t in touch with that friend when my mother died.

This thought reminded me of another friend of mine. We weren’t in good terms when my mother died. But even after two years I can tell that she gave me one of her most memorable moments for me. A total contrast to the other friend, though both share many identities….

I was thinking of death, the other day…

Death, dead body, graveyard or even the thought of such things can give us fear, in general.

It was night and I was waiting for the lift to come….

(There is a glass covered area near out lift. And from there we can see a part of our own car parking lot to kilometers and kilometers. Next to our boundary, there is a temporary colony of workers. They are from far away places and they work for a construction company which is building an apartment just about half a kilometer away from our apartment. Once the work is over, these workers will move to new location.)

I saw a dim light in that colony. And in that dim light, I saw a new grave. Somebody died there and they buried the body there itself. It was decorated with orange and yellow colored flowers. It looked really spooky.

“……look, I have seen an accident spot where the skull got crushed and brain came out…I have been to mortuary and seen bodies of some accident victims…it was just in front of my eyes that blood started oozing out of my mother’s mouth…” : me

“OK OK, will you please stop this?” : my wife

I stopped...