... And Then He's No More...

It's just another Thursday morning which I will spend my morning getting my groceries done at the market which is just 5 minutes away from home by walking. I'm blessed with a really strategic location where there are two markets just opposite each other in walking distance. I've roughly known everyone selling their goods, be it in the building itself or by the roadside.

There's this man who sells neatly sliced organic pumpkins wrapped up presentably. He also sells ulam (our local traditional salad). I know he has buah petai hanging on his bike. He's a very simple trader, selling from his bike. It was still early when mi mama and I walked to the opposite market. Just 8:30a.m. I saw the police patrol car. Hah~! Must be giving out summons to those who parked illegally by the roadside and causing traffic hiccups at our residential area every morning. 

Then, we crossed the road and from the opposite, we saw the man selling ulam lying down on the tar road beside his bike. He wasn't moving and he's definitely not breathing. He's dead. He died of cardiac arrest. One of the traders called the police. The ambulance was on its way. He wasn't covered with newspapers. There wasn't much crowd and there was definitely no looting.Nobody grabbed his freshly cut pumpkins and ran away. No one snap a photo using their smartphones. You don't selfie with a dead body lying on the road. That's totally disrespectful and not something to post up in the social network to boast about your day being great meeting with a dead man.

I went to get my basmathi rice then when we crossed the road, I was just walking beside him. An old lady laid her hands and pray for him. I do hope that he would get back his breath of life and has his heart pumping again. The ambulance came shortly when we left the house to do more grocery shopping at the hypermarket.

I'm sad by this turn of event. He's not even obese but whoever says that only obese people will suffer from heart diseases? And he's not even in his old age. Yet, he just went away like that without saying goodbye. How would his family members feel? It's just another mundane morning where he got himself busy selling pumpkins and ulam. Just another simple day. Did he see it coming that he wouldn't even have the chance to bring his things home and say goodbye before leaving?

Mi mama says one must live one's life humbly. Good reminder. You can be great and powerful and wealthy, what the world has you may have a hold of them, but the only thing you have no power over is your own life. One minute your heart is pumping and you are breathing, the next you might be gasping for air and before long, you're dead and gone. Just like that. In a wink of an eye. One trader less, will he be remembered? I don't even know his name. I don't know anybody's name. I just know them by what they are trading at the marketplace.

I can choose to be anybody I want to be, but I can never choose the way I want to leave this temporal world. Can't even suggest the simplest way to die. Most will prefer a painless death and one with no sufferings - die in one's sleep. Who would want a painful death? But then again, only God can decide as our lives belong to Him and Him alone.