Reflections on life and death

It is not enough to think about death, but you must always have it in front of you. Then life becomes more solemn, more important, more fruitful and joyful. "Stefan Zweig

In this life the great mystery of man is his death. It is a great mystery because nobody knows with certainty what there is after death.

Fall into the void, into nothingness or fall into eternal happiness and rest ?. This makes the conception of death, and the end of our earthly life, have a different meaning.
"Death is something that happens to others" Valery. Seeing death to others convinces us of our own mortality, but while we are alive it is "another" the person who dies. And that other person can be a relative or a friend, and a part of us dies. But those other people can also be anonymous, which apparently does not affect us as much. Wars and violence with their many deaths have made us insensitive. Every day in our country of violence, we see death and to reassure ourselves we think: This is not with me.
"Death is life lived. Life is a death that comes "Jorge Luis Borges.
Our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents and our great-grandparents died with all their families. Teachers and their disciples die too. "Everyone dies." The ashes of all our loved ones are under the earth: "May their memories live, but their ashes be forgotten" William Bentley- "They die and they die and they will continue and we will continue to die". Death has always been among us and has been a constant throughout history. Death does not forgive the rich or the poor. Neither the black, nor the white, nor any human being. We are scheduled for death. "The pale death the same calls the cabins of the humble that the towers of the kings" Horacio. "In the long term we will all be dead" Keynes. "And also in the long term nothing belongs to us" except for our soul if we believe in eternal life. The awareness of death can give us a deep feeling of freedom, of attachment to ourselves, as attachment to others and to earthly riches. "Here the spirit is reborn over the material" (Author unknown). "Death is the great teacher of life. The wise man accepts death as his great intimate friend "(Leo Buscaglia). "You did not lose anyone. The one who died simply came forward, because we all go there. " "In addition, the best thing about him, love, is still in your heart" (Facundo Cabral) To a patient of mine with a heart condition that was difficult to handle, I asked him about his death and he replied "Doctor, there we go one after the other, without anxieties but with fear ". He died at 3 months and he reminded me of "there we go one after the other".

Every day we confront her. And more, as doctors that we are. We must work with Nature because she is wiser than all of us. When she does not let herself be helped, there is nothing to do: "Man dominates nature when he begins to obey it". How many of our patients rest their remains in the Metropolitan Cemetery and in an unknown eternity, despite all our treatments.
And their soul where will it be? . And grateful relatives continue to bring their patients because they understand that we are as human and as deadly as they are and we do not play at being gods in their handling.
How many times we play God, in the face of incurable diseases, where we do not accept death and do treatments that border on futility. We should not be frustrated with death. We all have a line to reach. Not before or after. You have to learn that death comes when you want: "Not a second before or a second later." Nor can we play God take life with direct and active Euthanasia. We do not own life because nobody gave life to himself. We must be respectful of life and death. "You did not make a single hair of your head, so you can not own anything." Death is part of life.
Here death will always win the game, and we must accept it for the patient's sake and avoid unnecessary suffering and costs. "Death is a single moment, not the process of dying, which can be long and painful and we can contribute to it" JGJ. "A dying man needs to die" and we do not let him die. "The process of dying is more feared than death itself."
"Only for death there is no remedy," our loving mother would say fondly when we were faced with the solution of a problem. "The last thing you lose is hope". "She is between life and death."
In this year in a serious illness that I had, I saw it closely, and left in my spirit a feeling of fragility in my biological bag. We are vulnerable at any time. I had never thought about my death. It had not crossed my mind to ask for the holy oils. Death has me on his list, and I often ignore it. He does not seem to count on me. "It is not enough to think about death, but you must always have it in front of you. Then life becomes more solemn, more important, more fruitful and joyful. "Stefan Zweig
Everything comes in this world and everything happens. " "The past is irretrievable." The past is gone and it goes away forever, it only remains in our remote memory as memories of yesterday that will not return. Or it remains in our memory photos. Observe how you were as a child and now watch yourself as an old man. Are you the same? Not for a moment. Observe yourself in the mirror: The entrances of your forehead have increased, and the snow invades your black hair. Wrinkles appear on your face, and your eyelids bulge. Our childhood has passed, our youth has passed and now we are in our old age closer to the goal. Before I was the little one in the house, now I am the old man before new characters that did not exist: our children, our grandchildren, our other relatives who have also grown and reproduced, new friendships. Life is renewed and everything continues to evolve.
My old man died already, and now the old man is me "says one of our bambucos senses.

"In youth we learn, with age we understand". "" Life can only be understood by looking back, but it can only be lived by looking forward ". We see every day that our physiological reserve is running out more and more. We do not see as before. Our auditory acuity decreases. Our memory begins to fail and falls into a vacuum.