FEATURE
THE Last Chapter OF MY LIFE
Timir Banerjee, MD
I
do not know of any other religion except Hinduism that has divided the stages of life and has assigned responsibilities for each of the four stages from childhood till death. The people of the steppes that came to the East to start the civilization of the Indus valley gave us the Vedas( Rig Veda is assumed to have been written somewhere between 1700-1100 BCE) and the Upanishads in Sanskrit. It is from these books that we learned the ways of attaining Moksha. It is not reached by painting our faces with ashes or by smoking Afghani ganja or by being able to stand in a trance or by walking on hot coals or by chanting on a continuous basis Buddhang Sharanang Gacchami.
Ecclesiastes 3:1“ There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens” says something similar about stages of life. This was believed to have been written by King Solomon( 900 BCE) and possibly edited by Hezekiah.
I am writing this to share with my colleagues who will also face their last chapters of life. I have found it important to recognize the time when the“ last chapter” begins. Mind you, in this book of Life, we cannot look at the end, as we can do in a book, to determine how much time it is going to take to finish the book. In this life, we must progress at a pace designed for us by the Maker. We cannot hasten the journey( except by self-inflicted wound or chemicals to harm ourselves) and we cannot slow our pace. The chakra of life has its own speed destined and determined by our genetic makeup long before we were physically delivered on this earth. All of us who have seen the wheels carved onto the Buddhists temples surely sat down next to those and / or wondered the meaning of those wheels.
I am convinced that most of us desire to have a long duration of life and of course the measurement of the length can be chronological or just in terms of what I call“ joyful presence.” I have measured life in chronological terms only because I am a doctor and I had to learn that certain illnesses take certain amounts of time to get better. I memorized many tables and charts regarding longevity of different populations and about risks of death in certain populations and the association of death in certain illnesses. I personally value“ joyful presence” more than a long duration of life. I was taught as a child that“ desire” begets desire and that causes suffering because there is no end to“ wanting to do things,” that which we now call a“ bucket list.” At first we want to see the birth of our children and then their wedding and then grandchildren and so on and so on. All along knowing fully well that it is my desire to live long to see all of those events In Mahabharata, the great epic of India, God in the form of a bird had asked Judhistir, the wise patriarch, what was most surprising to him. He answered that men are born every day and die every day, and yet those alive never think that death is waiting at the door for them too.
So this is what I did to recognize and live my last chapter. After operating till 8 PM three days a week for more than 20 years, I had to decide my future. I felt that I had been running at full speed and cutting through the wind and yet not feeling its lulling effect or its warmth. I was consumed with my work as though I had been placed
( continued on page 12)
10 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE