Transient

 "Your life is as transient as the autumn clouds" - The Buddha

Yesterday, the father of one of my workers passed away. I'm still trying to fathom the whole situation because we met, I said hi to him, seven hours before he died. I do understand that he had a heart condition and she brought him to my hometown (from her hometown) to get a check up and to also take care and accompany him since he was living alone. Yesterday we sent him to the hospital for the check up and we discovered that there was an inflammation in his valve.

Late into the night, he lost consciousness and then I received the news that he passed away.

Seven hours. It was the time between the last time we met, and the time he left this world.

I wonder within this seven hours, how did he feel? Did he ever know what's coming? I was in deep deep shock when I received the news. It was that short. Life is really really unpredictable and really short. This even last night reminded me of the Buddha's words. Which goes like:

"Your life is as transient as the autumn clouds"

There had been a few occurrences like this that I experienced. I remember a few years back the same thing happened to one of our workers, who also died of a sudden heart attack. Same, I met him in the afternoon, we said hi as usual, the next morning, he's gone forever. There was also a time where my dad's friend, who was still talking and laughing with him at 10 PM, died at 11:30 PM at the same night.

Our existence in this world is really really short, when you think about it. I often wonder on our death bed, how will we feel? Even if we lived such a wonderful and great life, will we still feel that our existence in this world is such a short one? Earth has existed for billions of years and yet the average human life lasts for about 80 years. Compared to the existence of our planet, it is very very short.

Life is as predictable as the weather. We don't and won't really know what's gonna happen next. We hope for the best and embrace tomorrow like it is going to come. What if tomorrow doesn't come for us? The thought that we go to bed each night believing that tomorrow will come again and again is quite an amazing feat of this life. It is faith. It is trust, and hope. It is what keeps us going.

Rest in peace to him.