25 March 2013, at home.

It’s been 3 weeks since I faced that accident. An accident changed my entire life. I died, almost,  on 4^th March 2013. The good news is I’m alive and recovering quickly. After spending 2 days in the hospital, I was discharged and asked to rest at home for 4 weeks. That’s a full month. I have never stayed (to best of my memory) at a hospital as a patient in my whole life, though I have stayed with my wife when she delivered our 2 kids. I have never stayed at home for this long in my whole life. I never thought, I will have to. But, now I think it happened for a specific reason and love the rare opportunity I have been given. I don’t want to explain the accident part of it, because it carries no meaning to me, at least. Those who read this can get an idea about the nature of it, just by thinking the time given me to rest.

I never thought of writing this. But spending at home made me write this today, after exactly 3 weeks from the incident. I was a frequent user of fixed telephony, mobile telephony, mobile Internet and fixed Internet for the last 10 years. But, for the last 3 weeks, I got fully disconnected form that digital world, except answering few telephone calls from my home phone or my wife’s phone for urgent matters. That again after 2 weeks from the incident. I lost my phone in the incident and I never wanted to buy one. I never had an Internet connection in my home and I still don’t have. We never had a television in our home (we came to our home in July 2008). I may probably update this writing in my blog, when I get a chance or I may not do that. I’m just writing this to record an important incident in my life. There have been other important incidents in my life and I have never recorded them in writing. I have photo and video records of most of them and many of my friends have seen them in facebook.

So, what did I do for the last 3 weeks? I slept. I ate. I spent time with the friends and relatives who came to seem me. I intentionally don’t call them visitors, because they are not. I realized later that I have had only friends and relatives in my life and no visitors. After 1 week, I started reading and watching movies on my laptop. I started listening to some sermons of Venerable Kiribathgoda Gnananada Thero, I had in my laptop. If it is not for this accident, I may have never listened to those in my entire life. Those sermons helped me a lot to understand “life” and the real purpose of “living” it.

I realized that the life of mine and the others continued to roll despite me staying at home. My wife spent 2 weeks with me at home, even without sleeping at night. Rather than feeling sorry, I really admire, respect and honor the great courage she had as a women to face the situation. I had the great opportunity of understanding the iron lady within her. I’m also happy to see the way my 2 kids faced the situation. I still remember the way my 4 year old daughter cried when I came home from the hospital. Since then she wanted to whisper a secret to my left ear. I did not allow as the doctors advised me to protect that side of the head for some time. I still remember the joy she had, when I finally allowed her to do that after 2 weeks. Only then I realized that she really wanted to check whether my wounds are healed fully. My son brought a silver medal from his school sports meet, when I was at home. My wife goes to work as usual now. My 2 kids continued their schooling. But when all of them are out in the morning, though my father-in-law and mother-in-law are with us, I felt a big loneliness. I converted that loneliness to look in deeply in to my life. The life I have been living. We, including many of us in this world, are running like dogs, day and night. We never stop. We have no time to look at life, but rather we spend the life, without knowing what rally it is. Like very few in this world, I got the chance of “stopping”, at least once in my life, to look in to the life deeply. I really appreciate that opportunity I have been given. My only worry now is, whether I’ll join the same dog race, once I start working from 4^th April. I wish I’ll not.

I basically learned 2 things as a result of the incident I faced 3 weeks ago.

1.      You can lose your life at anytime, anywhere, any way.

2.      You need to earn more friends and less money.

I’m glad that I faced the 1^st one and experienced it. I’m also glad that I’ve been practicing the 2^nd in my entire life. I also realized that some small things, like spending time with kids, helping them to learn things, at least spending few minutes with parents (both yours and your spouse’s) , etc. are of high value and you only realize when you are unable to do those. I got attached to my family, relatives and friends more than ever and feel the results especially from my wife and kids. 

I have seen my relatives die. I have seen my friends die. I have seen my relatives get sick. I have seen my friends get sick. Though I knew that it’s common to everyone, I never realized it this deep, until I myself faced it. When life is so uncertain, every moment is so important and valuable. Time gone is gone. You can never recreate lost time. You can never recreate lost moments. 

I’m going to end this now. If I ever publish this in my blog, sorry if it is not the type of writing you expected from me. One thing at last, it’s not worth the risks we take with life. Never be hurried to anything. Take your time. Be focused. Never lose your mind.

Thank you for reading. I wish you all will understand “life”.

Anuradha Udunuwara 2.0

P.S: 2.0, because, I believe this is my 2^nd life.