The journey to the cemetery was not just any ordinary journey involving graves and tombstones of all sorts, but also a journey that involves understanding the nature of life and death in this journey of our own lives and also the different representations that surround both aspects. When we are alive, we are surrounded by the hustle and bustle of the city life, with cars swarming in onto roads as people take time to do everything necessary in order to survive in an extremely volatile world. People are generally quite sociable with each other and in one way or another, we are exposed to communicating with them for whatever reasons. The world is green, with all sorts of plants dotting the earth, and that same representation was seen during the cemetery itself, where there were tall green grasses that swarm around the tombstones, as if giving them a possibility of a new life after death. That death is actually a new beginning. Yet again, this same greenery can be juxtaposed with several brown patches across the cemetery, most of them surrounding tombs that are seemingly alienated from the rest, and are left in isolation. They are kept so unkempt to the point where I questioned myself for a second if that was really a tomb or it is just a slab of rock on the surface of the earth. A promise of a new life now seemingly brings isolation from the rest of the world who are still alive. There is a divide separating the cemetery and the city centre, where there are no more cars that swarm the streets, or no more people communicating with one another. Tombs are just slabs of rocks meant to contain the dead and it acts as a barrier for communication between the dead and the loved ones. It brings me to a parallel when we are in our mother’s womb, we were unborn and people only knew our existence and our ‘identity’ through the growing bulge of our mother’s womb . Similarly, when we are dead, we are now again unknown to the world and are buried six foot down the earth, and people knows us by the tomb that contains our dead bodies. At the end, life and death goes well with each other, the promise of life at the beginning brings about loneliness, and our death also brings about loneliness. The communications and relationships forged during this lifetime will be temporary, we only exist as memories in the minds of our loved ones but they still continue on with their lives after shedding a few tears for our absence, and just a normal everyday person who has already embraced the taste of death to the rest of the world. I will like to sum this up with a hand-written poem:
Wish
I am from my mother’s womb,
From a cluster of cells to an undisputed individuality
No one knew me, I had no connection with the world I was bound to
Except from the cord that connected me with my mother
That severed when I opened my eyes to Mother Earth
I am from home
Sitting , playing and embracing the beauty of myself
Studying in front of thousands of textbooks, as I shed a few tears about life
What is life? I question my happiness when I was an infant and had no responsibilities
I wish I was dead!
I am from work
Sitting in front of 3 computers meant for different aspects
Sitting together with colleagues that I knew from school
I loved them
They loved me too
I treasured them
They treasured me too
We talked over coffee and talked about our dreams to have diamonds
One left, the other left and the other.
I was alone. I hated being alone
What is life? Does God hate me that much?
I wish I was dead!
Where am I?
I don’t hear my voice on this earth anymore
I am under a slab of rock
With a tombstone engraved with my name
And flowers over my new bed
I hear nothing like before
No cars. No school. No work. No family. No friends
I needed them, they were not here
Why?
I hear nothing but the constant crowing of vultures
looking around for bodies to feed off their individuality
What is death? Why am I so alone? Where is everyone?
I wish I was alive…
"Forgotten"- A Writing Journey 