Heaven or Hell? The choice is yours

As we broach close to four months in our new COVID-19 reality, the uncertainty of what the future will hold has had trepidations tremor up and down my spine. Whether or not the enigmatic way of life BC (Before Covid) will be better than how it once was still remains a mystery thriller ready to unfold, but what I do know is that these ongoing uncertainties have my synapses flaring up old memories of when tragedies were only stories read in Greek plays, that is until facing my very own. Since my dream for this site is to one day evolve into a community where we can share, learn and support one another through our life experiences (along with keeping the inner psycho at bay with consistent practice of yoga and yoga philosophies), I feel that it’s only fair I begin by sharing some of my own most personal experiences. These are surreal times we find ourselves living in, but I can’t help but feel lucky that we are in a day and age where we are all able to connect and learn from one just through some few clicks of our fingertips. In essence, all of this social distancing and quarantine time has us reaching new hopes of humanity by sharing through the web… so, I’ll start:

I remember the first time my world was “disrupted” and it was experiencing life as a typical Third Culture Kid. We had to move from Korea (where we had lived for four years) to India (where we resided for two and a half years) and then again from India to Cairo. The constant moving would continue until I was 17 and bound for university, living in a country no longer than four years tops. Moving at a pre-pubescent age was a delight, an adventure to new lands where hidden treasures of new friendships lay. Of course it could get frustrating having to be constantly be the new girl and unsure of where to sit at lunch… or who to invite to my birthday (I was always the youngest in my class, with my birthday at the beginning of the school year). However, none of it really mattered because I had my family. Both daunting and exciting, these disruptions didn’t usually come with so much forewarning, but were still welcomed and something to look forward to.

However, none of these moves, which taught me to adapt quickly to new environments, prepared me for the change that shook, or shattered is a more concise adjective, my glass menagerie world. My father had a heart attack when I was 11. He was 53, extremely fit - both mentally and physically with daily exercise and meditation - was a leader on all fronts and was admired by all, but most of all, by me. He was my knight in shining armor.

His sudden passing, which happened exactly one week before Christmas, had the illusionary floor (and by that I mean I thought it would always be there), suddenly dissolve and sent me tumbling down a rabbit hole, one that still exists within me today. We were waiting for him to join us for Christmas break in Switzerland. I remember the phone call vividly, we were all seated for a family dinner (we were having raclette). Bob Walsch, who was my father’s boss, called and the energy changed so quickly. What began as a fun family dinner quickly turned into confusion and then soon to heartbreak. I remember Bob speaking, but I couldn’t make out all of the words, all I knew was that something horrific had happened. Why wasn’t my father speaking? Why did Bob have that tone in his voice? Why was Bob, my father’s boss, suddenly breaking down? Sometimes you don’t know need to hear the story to know what’s already happened, my father was gone. We were all crying and I went to hug my mom and I remember all I could say was sorry over and over. I don’t know why those were the words that came out, but that’s all I could say in between breaths. I won’t go into more details, but my mom had to take the next flight to Cairo to begin packing up our house and prepare for funeral arrangements. I would join a week later.

That moment, which has shaped me so much as an individual, made me begin questioning Life. If there is a God (I wasn’t raised religious but in true TCK fashion, said a prayer to Jesus before dinner and would pray to Buddha with my mom before bed). What is the purpose of life? Am I allowed to laugh or enjoy living anymore? These were hard revelations to try and tackle at 11, especially without my mom or siblings around (we were all trying to deal with this new reality that it was hard to be there for one another). I remember my niece, who was 4, and I were playing in the snow one of the days before going back to Cairo and at one point we were laughing and I quickly stopped because… well, I remembered what happened… I’d never see my dad again. How could I be living life still? How has life continued without him? And how dare I laugh and have forgotten for that moment? I asked my aunt if it was ok and she held me and said something along the lines that I shouldn’t hold back my happiness, that my dad wouldn’t want that. It was so hard not to feel guilty, to continue living knowing that my knight in shining armor, who touched so many lives and helped them, was taken in an instant. It was after that moment that I knew that I could never take anything for granted... that just when you think your life couldn’t be more perfect, life has a funny way of throwing a curveball at you that makes you question the purpose of existence and what’s real.

My mom somehow managed to make the transition from living a lush (albeit spoilt) expat life with what I saw through my innocent 11-year old eyes a perfect family, to working-class life raising four kids, three put in public schools and a family trying to pick up and fit back the pieces together after a tragedy. We (my siblings and I) were foced by the schools to attend therapy since my mother had to state what happened to our family during the application process. Even then I remember I couldn’t bring myself to really talk about it because I knew I was already one of the lucky ones. That fate had me born into a family that not only had money from decades of hard work, but was full of love, true love. How dare I feel sorry about myself and what had happened when I was lucky enough to even have had my father as my dad, even though our time was cut much too short. I knew from living in India and seeing poor children begging on the streets trying to make ends meet that I was lucky.. so what gave me the right to wallow?

It’s strange to think that our fate somewhat is determined by what family we are born into. When I heard about India going on a complete lockdown I automatically thought about how all of those people I recall living off the streets, trying to make ends meet whether it was begging, doing the odd job or stealing. How are they going to survive this? Who is going to take care of them? Its thoughts like these that can tear down my soul like a rampant tornado. Thoughts like these can be debilitating because there’s no way one person is able to solve everyone else’s problems - so what can I do? How can I help? It’s then I have to remember that what I can do is be there for those around me. Whether friends or strangers, from a smile to a donation to a helping hand to someone when they fall on the street, the energy that I bring to those around me and the actions I take is where I can make a difference. This is also a reason why I started this site. We can easily go crazy filling our heads with thoughts of some of the terrible realities out there. That there are children starving, and have been starving for decades. That there re families torn from wars created by power-hungry leaders. The list can go on and there is only so much I think that most of us can stomach hearing. Tragedies happen all around us, every moment, but so do miracles. Now more than ever is a time we need to shift our focus to miracles. You, yes you, have the ability to change a life for the better.

There are things out there that we cannot control, and that is life itself. It is constantly changing and for some, can be fleeting, like a shooting star. It doesn’t make sense a lot of the time and although we try our hardest to put some rationale into it, some things aren’t meant to be understood, they’re just meant to be felt and to be learned from, even if we never asked for the lesson. I’ve been revisiting my memories these past few weeks, something I usually avoid as I can easily slip into a dark place where it’s hard to crawl out of. Life can seem so cruel at times, but as the saying goes, you win or you learn, and I think it’s especially during a crisis in which we can learn the most. I’m sorry sugar, but life can’t always be gumdrops on rooftops with blue birds singing. Our generation has been blessed not to have gone through a Great Depression or have had our men drafted into power-fuelled wars. This pandemic that we are all going through has finally broken down the protective, illusionary walls that many of us have built for ourselves. Life is vulnerable and must be cherished. I know we are all dealing with this new COVID-19 reality differently and physically separately in times of isolation, but at the same time, collectively. I used to feel so alone and be depressed, although putting on a happy face when going meeting friends, but for some reason, I don’t anymore…

So we do the best we can to help not only ourselves and family, but those around us. I want to end this post with a story I remember hearing when I was six and living in India… it’s funny how some stories resonate with you for life. Anyway, maybe you’ve heard it too, but since COVID-19 has emerged, it’s been echoing in my mind. It goes something like this:

A holy man asks God to be shown Heaven and Hell. God takes him down a hallway and opens a door to a room. In the room there’s a cauldron in the center with what smells like a delicious stew. Around this pot, emaciated and miserable looking people are seated around it, trying to feed themselves with a spoon that can reach the stew, but is too long to feed themselves. God closes the door and then guides the Holy Man further down the hallway and opens another door. The placement is a mirror image of the previous room, a delicious stew in the center of the room with individuals seated around it with long spoons. However, the people in this room are thriving, vivacious and laughing. God closes the door. The Holy Man said he doesn’t understand, the circumstances are exactly the same in the two rooms, why do those in Hell suffer so much? God answers, because they only think selfishly and try feed themselves. The spoon that is attached to their hands, however, is too long to do so, so they starve in their greedy attempts. The individuals in the room of Heaven live in harmony and feed one another, and that’s why they thrive.

I hope that this post wasn’t read in a negative way, because that is not my intention. To me, this is a recognition of tragedy as part of life’s lessons. To believe that we are in total control of our lives is an illusion. We don’t have control over everything that happens to us or around us, but we do have control of how we react and our own actions in our “room.” Live your life fully, tragedy will always be a part of our DNA, but so is compassion and our ability to help others.

Sincerely,

Samantha