Recently, my coffee maker stopped working. Normally, a simple episode like this should not bother anyone that much. But it did bother me. Why may you ask? This reminded me of our mortality. Whether it’s a gadget, human being, or anything else, they will eventually face mortality. None of them are immortal. I had bought this coffee maker a couple of years before my stroke, and now it was done. For me, I was almost done four and half years ago when I suffered a massive and extremely rare stroke. But somehow, I survived. God decided it was not yet my time to leave this beautiful planet of ours. When I say God, it is not a particular religious god but some higher power. I don’t believe that much in organized religion, but I am also not an atheist. I do believe in divinity. As a friend pointed out ‘I met god and came back’. I tried to rationalize why I was saved but found none. I thought there must be a reason. Me and my loved ones can only speculate. But only God knows. Whatever the reason may be, I decided to live life fully with this second lease on life, no matter how difficult it is was to face my new normal. I wanted the same for the coffee maker. Like the many things, I had tried to heal me in the past few years, knowing well that it may or may not work, I also tried different things to give this coffee machine a second lease on life. I tried everything to make it work again. But unfortunately, I could not. It made me sad that I could not revive it – I desperately wanted to revive it the way I have tried to revive myself not just from the stroke but other adversities I have faced ever since. One might say it is just a coffee maker, you can buy a new one, it does not cost a lot etc., but this was personal to me. I had no choice but to dispose it. And I got a new one.
Even though now I had this spanking new and sleek coffee maker, I felt terrible that I was not able to salvage the old one. It is only a coffee maker, has no life, no soul, it is a machine, then why I was feeling this bad? I don’t think I would have given this much thought had I not got another chance to live. I could not help but think that one fine day like the coffee maker, we all will stop functioning. Then our body will be disposed of. This is the reality of life. No matter who you are, where you are, you will have to face this eventuality. But hopefully as many folks believe, our souls will move on to a different body in the next life!
So, let’s be grateful and enjoy and cherish each moment we are here and not get too carried away or plan too far ahead. Also let’s tell those we care for that we love them. We need not carry any burdens or grudges, as like the coffee maker, our life will come to an end at some point. I bet the coffee maker would think the same way if it had life in it!