People just disappear sometimes. You have to love and appreciate them while they're near you.

I woke up after a good night sleep.  And later in the day, came the update that the great aunt had passed away.

It is the third death in the extended family within the past two months.  "It has been three, and I wonder who is next," my mother noted.

Such is our mortal lives.  At some point even when we are young we learn that death eventually comes for us too.  We too are on the same conveyor belt moving towards the same gate.  There is only one direction and only one gate.

The death of a young boy, a year or two older than me, was the event that convinced the 9-year old me that I, too, would die at some point.  Witnessing the death of my grandmother as an early teenager removed any doubt whatsoever.  Every single death further clarifies the understanding that we are mortals with expiration dates.  As George Yancy notes:

No matter how many times I’ve decided to remove the veil, the sting of our collective finitude continues to hit me, along with the reality of bodily decomposition and putrefaction. The unspoken reality of death, which is the haunting background of our lives, shakes my body ... Yet a clarity emerges.

Even though we know that we will not live forever, and even though this accident of being can come to an end at any time, we simply refuse to engage in frank and honest discussions of death and, therefore, life.  I agree, again, with Yancy:

Death is our collective fate. Yet so many of us fear to talk about it, fear to face it, terrified by the idea of nonbeing. But we must face our destiny, our rendezvous with death.

We love living.  It is difficult to accept that there will be a moment from when we will no longer be here.  It sounds like a cruel joke that somebody is playing on us.  But, we can't dodge that  "rendezvous with death."  That fateful encounter is the loneliest event in one's life.

Where went the life of that boy?  My friends?  My grandmother?  My great aunt?  What will happen to me when my life ends?

Years ago, I came to peace with an understanding that I will never know the answer(s).  All I can do is live in the here and in the now.  And feel sad that the people I knew are taking turns exiting this world. We feel the pain only because we survive. Because we are alive. We are alive to know and feel that the person who was close to us died.

I feel privileged that I am alive to think about them.