On Departures(1)

Prelude

If life had any significance or meaning by itself at all, there can be no greater comfort than a proper sense of closure,to everything in life. To be able to see one's life unfold yet again before one's very own eyes, to see the years gone by coming together, compressed into a few short days, if anything, it allows us the chace to appreciate and understand the importance of the lost memories, and extinguish all possible regrets. It is perhaps the way life is, that it is only departures; supposedly sad and painful, which offer us this unique opportunity, to really live the same life twice, where the distinction between past and present is blurred, allowing us to recognise the only things that really are important to us in life, one more time.

I consider it the greatest blessing in my life, that with the passing of my 21st birthday, I have been faced with 2 departures, each affecting the other, both tremendously affecting me, both allowing me to look back and forth across life, and be able to appreciate life on an unprecedented level, and to understand death for the first time. The first is the dying of my mother, the second, my own leaving for the UK to study. I believe my mother left as early as she did, such that she would not interfere with my going abroad, and it was her passing that brought my entire life before me again before I fly for UK.

And now, I will embark on an incredibly difficult journey, to explain both processes, the process of dying and the process of leaving. And the greatest fortune, is that these were processes and not events.