The Yous that Died

6.6 million people have died of COVID across the globe.

Over 300 people have been killed in Iran as the Islamic Regime tries to tame the new revolution.

A few weekends back, 154 people died due to an overcrowded Halloween celebration in South Korea.

The number of lives lost as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine are in the thousands (war never keeps its true score).

What if you were one of these numbers? 

Ponder it for 30 seconds.

Imagine you are hooked to a ventilator, your chest sunken by the weight of your mortality.

Imagine a searing pain on your chest bending you to the ground. Your chants are silenced by the bullet that pierced your lung.

Imagine a barrage of legs and elbows crush your bones like waves in the tempest; the screams around you are the last things you’ll hear.

Imagine kneeling hand-tied in the same backyard where a year ago you were dancing with your daughter on her birthday. A final moment of peace and dread, before the trigger is pulled and your life ends.

Close your eyes and imagine this.

It’s a lot. Tears well in my eyes as I write this. These are the Yous that died.

Every day, society glances over the lives that end. Death is inescapable. Yet, we numb ourselves to grief.

We watch shows like Game of Thrones with glee, tacitly consenting to gratuitous death because it's just a show, without realizing our perception has been perverted. We hear “10 people killed” on the local news, and proceed to spend the next 15 minutes listening to the weather forecast. Their stories don’t matter as much as the fact that it will be 65 and cloudy tomorrow with a 30% chance of showers.

We become desensitized to the people that die around us. We avoid it because we are afraid to confront our mortality. We avoid thinking about death to resist feeling hopeless.

We have to build the fortitude to go to this dark place. Learn how to be cave dwellers. In this dark place, we must ask ourselves “what if that was me?” It is the darkness that makes the light that much brighter.

You must go to the dark place to not lose your humanity. To honor these people with reflection. To use that reflection as the impetus to live a life full of compassion for others, in alignment with your values, to see mortality not as a guillotine, but as the north star in a moonless night.

Think about the Yous that died.