THE ART OF DYING

I have  been witness to the art of dying many times in my career as a duty doctor ,since we as doctors on duty are summoned at odd hours to attend and certify death in the wards. The atmosphere is tense or rather intense with a crowd of people ,not only relatives but also near ones of the patients lying near bye taking up sentinel duty .Though we like it or not, awakened in the dead of night by the nurse in charge and already warned by them that we have to hurry to witness the last rites of seeing off fellow beings,we have to change our body language, to exercise our facial muscles to look grim, of over matureness , I mean a serene face to face the ordeal . The problem is no body dies happily or with a sense of comfort amidst the pain or struggle with a decaying disease. The helpless look ,the labored shallow breaths ,the indrawing of the cheeks ,the shineless dry skin , the defeated look after the struggle to ward off the inevitable , is too evident. And slowly but definitely everything slows down to cessation of all bodily activities and vital functions comes to a full stop and we are forced to sign on a piece of paper that so and so has died of such and such disease and is no more.

The problem that is haunting me , is, when does this art of dying starts? Does it start immediately before one dies, or does it begin much earlier say when we get old ,or is it when we start fearing death much earlier ,or may be long long back when we struggle to fall asleep or right from the start when the infant cries before falling asleep or when he gasps before taking the first breath when he comes out of the uterus. In short are we living or dying ? If so from when to when? or then what is the difference? .Some say we are born every day in the morning[for some , morning may mean just before noon],I mean the first act of the day when we realize the fact that we are alive and kicking and this act being carried through the end of the day when we fall asleep ,I mean when we are not too sure of the fact that we are alive except in our dreams when also we live by proxy .What happens in coma or death ,I know not except that we are not aware that we are alive. Scientists say that degeneration at cellular level starts around by 35 years and biologically too , nature doesn’t support  or nurture life after the reproductive phase is over and at genetic level once the sperms or egg are developed , the genes have already migrated  ,meaning end of life or beginning of a new cycle. Mentally saying, we are never aware of the fact that we exist before 4 or 5 years of our life ie that is when we start to remember that’ I’ is’ ‘I.’ Then for another 10 15 years , we are  trained by our parents and society as to how to live. After that for another 30 years is the mad race for power , money ,  family raising when we don’t have any time to be aware that we are alive .By then we have reached our 60’s and start to look back at the great blunder we committed, then degeneration disease and death. So when are we living or dying?