I just finished reading Mitch Albom’s Time Keeper – in five
hours. So if you have a day to laze around and do some spiritual reading about
death, this is the book. Why death? Because a lot of us fear it - we fear when it
may happen to us, we fear when it may happen to our parents, we fear our dreams and we fear our nightmares. Most of my circle of friends are at the age when phone
calls to parents revolve around hospital checkups, blood pressures, sugar and
joint problems – or worse. Many of us have already either lost a parent, or
both, and dread asking a friend about theirs fearing we may have missed some communication
about their loss. The book is about a man who got the gift to remain eternal, or depending on which way you look, he got punished for trying to measure time; all he sought was a remedy to bring back his dead wife. The book is also about another man who never wants to die, so much
so that he decides to freeze his body in a cryonics lab before his last breath,
trapping his soul essentially. The book is also about a young woman who wants
to die - rather take her own life - because the young lad she loved did not reciprocate. Ugh. In short, there are only three characters and the job of one,
the Time Keeper, is to teach the lesson of time to the other two, thereby redeeming himself.
"There is a reason God limits our days."
"Why?"
"To make each one precious."
The book does
this – teaches you to stop fearing and love every bit of the time you’re alive,
therefore embracing death in any which form it eventually comes.
It has been seven years since my mother died. I was there. It
was 5.17am on May 28 in 2007, memorial day weekend, when I heard the nurse yell
my name from the other room. Why do I know the time? Because that’s what I did
first - look at the clock as I ran. There is a clock in every room in my
parents’ house, even in the kitchen and bathroom - no kidding - and checking it
is as much a habit for all members as is brushing our teeth. We are constantly
planning our day – our wakeup, breakfast, bath, lunch, tea, the time we all
start getting ready for a party and the time when we all retire to bed. That’s
just how it was at my place. I became the bearer of bad news
that morning, waking up my father, ringing my siblings and relatives. They said
I was blessed because I was there. I didn’t think so. How blessed was I if my
mind couldn’t find solace and every time I closed my eyes, my mother's lifeless body
flashed by. I feared the visuals my mind conjured, I feared the anxiety it
brought along, I feared what might happen to my kids if I died – I feared
death. A lot has changed since then. And nothing has worked better than Time -
as it always does - to heal, to forget, to remember. I have learnt to remember
“the good times” with my mother and appreciate that she did enjoy every bit
when she was alive. What Mitch Albom did for me with this book is reiterate what
Eckhart Tolle did with ‘Power of Now’ – LIVE every moment valuably. When you
hear of someone’s death, talk about their life and the joys it brought. Just as
we were born so shall we die. Take death as an opportunity to celebrate someone's life. And stop keeping time.
-KCB, April 2014
