Soul's Burden Before Death

Who bears the greater burden when death arrives; the one who departs, or the one left behind?

Death and I became acquainted when my father took me to his mother’s grave, who had long passed before he even married.

One can add two and two even when they are eight. If my father’s mother had to rest below the ground for eternity, then my mother would have to as well, one day. Knowing what I had at stake, these thoughts became the air I inhaled and held in until I suffocated.

One day, I finally asked my mom,

“Mom, will you die?”

Although she was caught off guard by the question, her cold-blooded nature granted her a response through composure,

“No, honey, I won’t.”

I don’t know about you, but I think it’s sometimes healthy for parents to lie.

I would never cast honesty aside, yet truth can sometimes wear the mask of selfishness if it is born not out of virtue, but out of self-relief, the kind of truth-telling that serves the teller more than the listener.

From an existential view, truth-telling is neither good nor bad; its morality is not bound by rules but born from the depth of one’s self-awareness.

According to Nietzsche, speaking a painful truth to relieve oneself isn’t hypocritical; it’s authentic, revealing one’s inner drive for self-consistency.

Kant would argue that one must always tell the truth, for it is a moral duty. Lying, he believed, robs another of their right to choose freely.

Whereas Buddhist ethics says that truth alone isn’t virtuous without awareness and compassion behind it. It is only valuable when it reduces suffering.

I like to call it the ‘philosophy of the grey’, which gives far more space for the act of choice to hold meaning.

At the time, my young ears couldn’t have borne hearing that my mother too was mortal, destined to leave the world of the living. But being persistent by nature, I needed to be sure, so I asked,

“Do you promise?”

When she did, the burden pressing on my chest lifted, leaving me light as a feather.

I carried that promise with me everywhere I went.

The following years flowed free from the idea of death until my health collapsed. This time, its glimpse didn’t appear as a burden but as a saviour from the hell I had to call my life.

I have always been too much in love with life to cut to the chase so soon. Taking fate to my own hands was an act that I’d never have considered even in a million years if it weren’t for my health.

Still, when things grew unbearable, I relied on the thought of death, believing I still had a choice, a choice not to continue with a condition I never chose to live with.

I remember a moment when my sister was taking me to a doctor’s appointment and I confessed what I had been considering. Her exact words were,

“Well, don’t you dare not tell me before you act. I’ll hold your hand, and we’ll jump off this bridge together, for God’s sake.”

In that moment, my whole being overflowed with gratitude. For once, someone didn’t look at me with pity or feed me affirmations about life. Her understanding felt soul-deep. She was the only one I could talk to about it without fearing I would cause a heartbreak.

In the end, my torment ended miraculously when I recovered. I still attribute it to the alignment granted by all the spiritual work I did at the time.

Since then, I haven’t thought much about death, though recently, whispers of concern started to occur. I kept shutting them down until my unconscious staged what I could not express, shaping it into a dream I was finally ready to face.

Last night, I dreamt of my grandmother, half awake, half lost between worlds. She lay in bed, her eyes open but her spirit somewhere distant.

When she rose, I gently placed her back down, only to see a knife lodged deep in her arm. Terrified, I pressed my fingers against the wound, afraid to pull it out, afraid she might bleed to death. I called for help, my heart racing, until someone came and tended to her.

As she drifted into sleep, I sat beside her and read a story aloud. She listened quietly, peacefully, as if the sound of my voice stitched the wound closed, as if the story itself was what kept her alive.

I felt the wetness of my tears left on my cheeks although I remained asleep. I keep trying to cast it aside and cherish the days, but in truth I’m utterly scared of the time my grandmother has left living.

When I woke, the dream lingered like mist; not as fear, but as understanding.

Fragments of it kept visiting me during the day and slowly I began to realise my psyche was learning to face the reality of mortality not with panic but with compassion instead.

When I tended to my grandmother’s wound, I was really tending to my own fear of losing her, realising presence and meaning can coexist with it.

Because love has the power to hold both.

Even in moments of loss, heart knows how to stay. Even as life’s patterns change, connection remains.

What I witnessed wasn’t her dying, it was my heart awakening to the strength of what can never truly be lost.

Love doesn’t vanish; it changes shape. Sometimes we fail to recognise its new form, and that’s what makes letting go so piercing.

Today, I had a video call with my grandmother and asked about her health. Her words felt like an echo of my dream when she said,

“Not long left,” not with despair, but with a soft smile of acceptance.

In that moment, I realised she had already given me the answer to my question.

The greater burden belongs to the one who stays, not because they suffer more, but because they must learn how to carry love in a world that no longer holds the person that it is attached.

Yet within that burden lies the soul’s awakening; the discovery that love, once formed, never fades.

In truth, love still lives in the memories we quietly carry, deep and eternally alive in the corners of the heart.

In our darkest hours, we look to the stars, for they keep the sacred act of memory alive.

Author’s note: I wrote this piece through tears and it carries more of me than I can usually share. If it touched you, if it made you pause, I’d really appreciate your support as a paid subscriber. It helps me keep showing up and sharing honestly, even when it’s not easy.

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