Face to Face with Death

-

30 June 2025. The day I came face to face with death.

Have you ever wondered what it feels like to die?I never did. At least, not until that day.

I was drowning in a pond.

I was struggling to stay afloat, desperately trying to keep my head above the water. Panic took over me. I tried to find something to hold on to, anything that could save me. My hands searched frantically, but I couldn't find anything.

I was running out of strength. I couldn't think clearly anymore. All I could think about was getting out of the water.

I wanted to breathe. Just one proper breath.

But I was struggling, and I couldn't find a way out.

Imagine knowing that you need to do something to save yourself, but being unable to figure out what to do. Imagine feeling that you might die, right there, with no one able to hear the fear inside your head.

That was me.

I was terrified. My mind started going blank. I didn't know what was going to happen next. For the first time, I felt that I might never see my family again. I might never meet my friends again. I might never get to do all the things I had planned for my life.

Everything I had taken for granted suddenly felt precious.

In my mind, I cried out to God.

God, please save me.

And then, I saw a rope.

I grabbed it without thinking. My friends and others pulled me out of the pond.

I was saved.

I was alive.

But for a few minutes, I couldn't fully understand what had just happened. My friends tried to comfort me, while I sat there, shaken by the experience.

That night, I kept thinking about one question.

What if I had died?

My family would have waited for me to come home. My friends would have expected to see me again. But I would never have returned.

The people I loved would have cried. They would have struggled to accept that I was gone. With time, they would have learned to live without me. Life would have moved on.

But I would have had no tomorrow.

No second chance. No opportunity to correct my mistakes. No chance to say the things I had left unsaid.

Just like that, my story could have ended.

I believe the prayers of my loved ones helped save me that day. And I will always be grateful for the life I still have.

But that experience changed the way I look at life.

I realised how fragile we are. We make plans for years ahead, yet we don't know what the next minute holds.

Still, we waste so much of our time hating people, holding grudges, fighting over small things, and letting our egos come between us and the people we love.

Think about it. What if you never get another chance to make things right?

What if the person you refuse to forgive is someone you once loved dearly?

What if the last conversation you had with someone turns out to be your last forever?

We never know.

Life is too short to spend it carrying hatred in our hearts. Forgive people when you can. Let go of the things that steal your peace. Tell your loved ones what they mean to you. Stop postponing happiness until some perfect day arrives.

Forgiveness doesn't mean allowing people to hurt you again. It means learning to let go of the pain and finding peace within yourself.

I know it isn't easy. But try.

Because one day, we will all run out of tomorrows.

I am grateful that I survived that day. Not because I wanted to experience something so terrifying, but because it forced me to stop and look at my life differently.

I don't know how long I have left. None of us does.

But I know I don't want to waste the time I have.

That day, I was fighting for my life in a pond. Today, I am learning how to live it.

And if there is one thing I want you to take away from my experience, it is this:

Don't wait until you almost lose your life to realise how precious it is.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Lilykutty Teacher

-
My mother asked me to visit my grandparent's house because one of their old colleagues was coming to meet them after 45 years. They were all teachers in the same school during the 1970s. “Lilykutty Teacher used to work with your grandparents back in their teaching days,” my mother told me. Since my mother had some work at school and couldn’t be there, she asked me to go instead. I casually said okay and went there, expecting an ordinary afternoon with tea, banana chips, and old people discussing blood pressure and pension issues. But the moment Lilykutty teacher walked in, I realized she was different. She was 73 years old, but honestly, her energy could defeat most people in their twenties. She was cheerful, talkative, sharp, and effortlessly funny. The kind of person who enters a room and immediately changes its atmosphere. Within minutes, she had already adopted me into the conversation and insisted I stay for lunch. Then the nostalgia began. My grandparents and Lilykutty teache...
Read more

Later Never Came

-
Image
  My grandmother turned 79, and I remember quietly telling myself that we would celebrate her 80th birthday in a grand way. Eighty felt special—eight decades of life, memories, struggles, and love. That milestone deserved something big, I thought. But my father didn’t wait. He brought a cake, and our family gathered around her that day. There was nothing extravagant—just familiar faces, soft laughter, and a woman who looked deeply happy in that moment. When she smiled, it felt like time had slowed down. It was one of those ordinary moments that you don’t realize is extraordinary until much later. Two months later, she was gone. That was when it hit me: that celebration had been her last birthday. Not the grand 80th I had imagined, but a simple 79th—made meaningful only because we chose not to postpone it. Even today, when I think about it, I feel relieved that we celebrated. If we hadn’t, the memory might have been replaced by regret—the kind that stays with you forever. Life ...
Read more

Cold Chemistry

-
If my college life were a chemical equation, it would look something like this: boring lectures + confusing practicals + zero love life = a painfully average existence. That was me — Nirmal. Chemistry department, first year, specializing in nothing except avoiding viva questions. And then one random Tuesday morning, my life decided to conduct an unexpected reaction. Her name was Elza. She walked into our common language class like she owned the place — English department girl, that confident posture people in my department couldn’t even fake.  I noticed her the moment she sat two rows ahead. Noticed — as in, completely forgot what the teacher was saying, forgot my notebook, forgot that I existed. She was laughing softly at something her friend said, and in that one moment, my brain, which was supposed to handle complex reactions, turned into NaCl. Plain, useless salt. It’s funny how one person can ruin your entire academic focus with just one smile. I was from Chemistry; she was f...
Read more