The Boy That Died

 Light a candle, say a prayer...

The candle I lit for him is casting eerie shadows that flicker on my consciousness like ghosts. The sky rumbles in the low menacing tones of an injured beast. I write in meditation for the boy who died at 15.  A boy that I never met and whose name I don’t know. He died yesterday, I heard, from cancer.

I sit here in the deep of the night, the darkness oppressively pushing against the glass panes, and I mourn for him. The sudden burst of lightning releases fat furious rivers of rain that lash the windows and are being denied entry. And I sit here safe giving thanks for life.

In my solitude, the time I ask myself the important questions of my life, I try to understand why the death of a boy I never knew should touch me enough to try and keep a candle lit for him for three days. His death offends me.  Is it his age? Is it the thought of a life not lived, of potential never to be fulfilled,; of the love and sadness, the joy and sorrow, the pleasure and pain, the sunrises and sunsets that are our legacy as human beings denied?

I tell myself that the purpose of his life is fulfilled. His purpose… Who knows what that might have been. Perhaps, just a small act on his part that had consequences for another person, that even he didn’t understand; a small, tiny, unnoticed something creating shifts in movement in the karmic chain of events.

This last thought side-tracks my mind to the endless discussions I have had, still have, with fellow purpose- seekers: friends and teachers. An ever- increasing tide of us humans, who ask fervently and impossibly the same question in repeating meandering circles: “what is my purpose in this life?”  The answer  elusive,  temporarily mollifying, never really satisfying and forever shifting. Would that boy, whose name I don’t know, but whose humanity I mourn, have asked that question in his short time amongst us? Perhaps in the way of children: “what will I do when I grow up?” Or fleetingly and more intensely as an adolescent? Maybe he was one of the lucky ones that take life as it comes, in the unquestioning way of the young who have not had yet time to understand that in our 80-90 years span, life is actually too short, a blib on the radar of the Universe that barely flashes before it is again lost.

Ah, but he had cancer. I don’t know how long for or if he suffered much, but surely in his condition, he might have thought: “why me, why now, what lies on the other side?”. Was he scared? Did he feel sadness and despair or did he go in peace? Just like his name, the answers to these questions elude me. And still his death touches me in its seeming unfairness of life and of the gods. It touches me because it brushed me by, leaving me and mine intact this time. It takes my breath away to even glimpse at the possibility that death could have strolled into a house a few doors down from this boy’s. I think of the young boy’s family. I can’t even begin to imagine the torment and anguish this brings to them. What could one say to them? Do words even exist that would console and sooth their pain for even a split of a split of a split of a nanosecond?

The death of this boy, who I didn’t even know lived until he died, touches me because it brings me back to my struggle with death. How you live, so you shall die say the Buddhist teachings. And then? What lies beyond? An endless series of lives, chain-linked to how we live this and myriad previous lives. Endless existences in different forms, until we create enough merit for liberation, that  seemingly unattainable, unthinkable and scary nirvana of non-existence. My mind struggles to understand: the ultimate aim is non-existence. How can that be right?

I don’t know what the purpose of this boy’s life was. I don’t know if he was good or bad, whether he created good karma for himself in his ever -so -short -breath of a life. I don’t know where the life energy will take him and what incarnation he’ll find next. But I wish him farewell. I wish him to go ahead to a better dream where no cancer and suffering exist.  He is gone. He is not suffering any more. Who he was in this world is no more, nor will he ever again be, but the essence of who he is remains in all eternity.

Maybe a consolation for his family still exists. Just this: His soul remains. It is not wholly the person that you knew and loved, but it is whole, eternal and unalterable and it belongs in the Light. Say a prayer for him, light a candle and send your love to guide his way.

I learned of the young boy’s death from my sister, whose neighbour he was.  His loss helped both of us put in perspective our problems, pains and aches of the day and reminded us to be grateful for all that we have in our lives.