Death was never hidden from me. In many families, children are shielded from it — hushed conversations, closed doors, distractions. But in my home, death was treated as part of life, not as a dark mystery.
When my grandmother passed away, it was ensured that my younger sister visited her one last time. When one of my aunts passed away, and my father was leaving for the rituals, I stepped forward on my own and said, “I want to go with you.” Nobody stopped me. At our home, death was not a shadow we ran from, but a fact of life we learned to stand with.
Later in life, visiting the burning ghats of Varanasi deepened that acceptance. Watching the fires rise on the banks of the Ganga, seeing how openly life and death coexist there, strips away illusions. You realize — this is not something to fear. This is our shared truth.
The Hardest Losses
Still, acceptance doesn’t mean it’s easy. Losing our two dogs was painful. Their absence reminded me that grief comes in many forms, but death itself makes no distinction between human or animal.
And then came the hardest loss — my father’s passing. That year was the most difficult of our lives. Each of us coped differently: my younger sister moved to another city for work, while my brother, my mother, and I held the home together. Slowly, steadily, we came back to a new rhythm of living. Grief is never uniform, but walking through it together, we learned resilience.
Life From Death
During my conversation with Dr. Vaishaly Bharambe on Shruti Outloud, her words struck me deeply:
“One body teaches 10–12 students what is the human body, what is its structure, what is the feel of the artery, what is the feel of the nerve. Those 10–12 students go on to treat hundreds and thousands of patients. Suddenly, there is life emerging from death.”
It’s one thing to accept death as inevitable. It’s another to see it as a gift. To imagine that in death, we can still be teachers, healers, givers. That a single person’s choice to donate their body or organs can ripple outward to touch thousands of lives.
It reframes death not as an end, but as a passage into contribution.
Gratitude as an Anchor
I don’t keep a gratitude journal as of now ( I have tried it but consistency is not the key that works for me here), but gratitude runs through my daily life. I speak it, I share it, I post it. I remind myself and others: I am thankful for all that I have. Gratitude is not just a private ritual; for me, it is a way of living in conversation with the world.
Giving, too, has many forms. For some, it is donating a body. For others, it is knowledge. For me, it is time, attention, and listening. Being a good listener is my act of giving. I always hope that through me, through my conversations, people take something forward and pass it on.
Dr. Bharambe said something similar in her own way:
“Whether that’s through knowledge, teaching, or the gift of life through donation — giving is what matters.”
Endings as Beginnings
Over time, I’ve come to believe that every ending is also a beginning. The end of a life creates new doctors. The end of a heartbeat can mean the beginning of many others. Even in smaller ways, when something closes in our own lives — a chapter, a role, a relationship — it’s not only grief that fills the space. There’s also the quiet seed of something new.
Death, after all, is not separate from life. It is the other side of the same whole. And when we learn to hold both, gratitude becomes the bridge.
A Question for You
If life from death is possible in the most literal sense, what might be possible in our everyday lives?
What part of your life could you give forward — your time, your love, your knowledge — so that even when something ends, something else begins?
