Death will stop for you: A Letter

Dear son,

Today is your 50th birthday. Happy Birthday to you.

This is my last letter to you. I wrote it the day I realised I'd not last long. Cancer, after all, is a disease of internal rottenness. By the time it surfaces, it might have killed you inside. A stage 4 prostate cancer at my age is the last human suffering on earth. So, I decided to use the lost form of letter writing to say my final words. But when I had my pen and paper, I got stuck.

What can a frail father of 80 write to his soon-to-be-50 son? What is there that I did and you did not? You always were more successful than I was. I was a school teacher, teaching geography in class 9 and 10, maths in class 6 and 7, and acted as a proxy English teacher for all classes. You're an engineer. You decided on your own path and studied at the best institution of the country. Like countless fresh graduate engineers, you left your country for the USA and you earned your American dream.  Your mother and I were poor at family planning and had four children, when we actually should have had two. But because struggle was the norm rather than an exception when you were growing up, we are fortunate that our children never blamed us. Rather you and your siblings always respected us for being simple, honest, and modest middle class; when in truth, we probably were naive and foolish. You did not repeat my mistake. You and your wife were smart and went with the mantra of a perfect familyhood—two children, one boy and a girl. Both of you earn enough to make everyone proud or envious depending on who the person is. Hence nothing I can write about your life plan.

You have a good life. But do you know how you want to die? Have you planned for a good death? I know in the west people plan for everything—they can pre-book their funeral, can choose the wood of their coffin, the car that will carry the coffin. They can even decide what music they want to listen to when they die. I read about how to plan for a good death in a magazine when I was at your place.

I spent 10 minutes thinking. I became anxious because time was running out. Out of desperation, I thought about writing on the most immediate question I was pondering on. You have a good life. But do you know how you want to die? Have you planned for a good death? I know in the west people plan for everything—they can pre-book their funeral, can choose the wood of their coffin, the car that will carry the coffin. They can even decide what music they want to listen to when they die. I read about how to plan for a good death in a magazine when I was at your place. At that time, I sneered and joked about it with your mother—another example of western craziness, I said. Death just comes. Who can plan for it? And we all want to have an ideal death—peaceful in sleep, couched up by our dearest person, swift and painless. There is no way we can have an ideal death—if we had, we would have probably lost our faith in the higher up.

But as you reach 50, maybe you want to ensure a good death matching your good life? You may be irritated thinking, how can a father of 80 advise a son of 50 to prepare for his death at a time when 50, as they say, is only the beginning of the mid-age. You have every right to be. But remember, you may be here for the next 30 years, I may be gone in the next 30 days. So that's why I am giving you this untimely advice. Start thinking about the following to ensure your good death:

Where do you want to die? In the USA or in Bangladesh? A lot of first-generation Bangladeshi want to die in the country where they settle in and then want to be buried in the land of their birth. Circles full. I don't always understand the logic. Why don't people just come back home when they get the indication that death is near? But don't feel guilty to prefer to die and be buried in the USA. Your children and their children will be there. You may want to be with them rather than with us; after all home is not only where we are born, it is also where we finally rest. Think hard and decide.

Who do you want to be with when you die? Don't jump to the conclusion that you would like to be with your beloved wife and children. Although I sincerely hope you do. But you may want to be alone, or you may want your robot—I assume you'll have one by then—beside you. I hear robots are catching up with human emotions and can give a lot of comfort. Humans can be quite distressing at a time of death. They make too much noise, crying, praying, counting.

Think of which five books you want to read or hear in the audio before you die. Remember, we only have one life. If you don't read the books in this life, chances are little that you'd ever read them. Heaven doesn't have libraries and hell does not fare very well either.

Think of which five books you want to read or hear in the audio before you die. Remember, we only have one life. If you don't read the books in this life, chances are little that you'd ever read them. Heaven doesn't have libraries and hell does not fare very well either.

Plan the music you want to listen to in the last few days. Don't go for too dull or too classical music. You may now realise why I always want to listen to Kishore Kumar and Muhammad Rafi. Their songs remind me of my youth and make me thankful for the life I had. Choose songs that you loved when you were young so that you can relive through music.

Finally, from now on, live each day as though death is here. Death will be here. But life is what you have. Live good so that you die majestically.

Happy birthday once again.

Your father