" I don't fear dead body anymore"

 

Human behaviors are affected by many dimensions. Social environment is one dimension that affects our behavior including the way we see our life. In this article “I don’t fear dead body anymore”, I have written about my fear to dead body in my childhood because of our superstitious culture. Most importantly, it covers important incident at hospital where I learnt to handle my fear of dead body.

 

“I don’t fear dead body anymore”.

I am born in remote, a very remote village of Monger. Our villagers are so superstitious that they refuse to take modern health facilities. The villagers are conditioned to believe that when someone die, his/her soul is taken by the local deities. Then villagers would start to get scared of the dead body because we believe that we might encounter a dead person in the form of a ghost. Anybody who is born into our village would learn to adapt such myths from childhood and I got no exception. I was grown up fearing to do my toilet without my youngest uncle of mine. It was one day when my parents have left to attain the funeral of my neighbor. I was left home alone with my youngest uncle. And I remember sleeping with him on that night where my sleep had been disturbed by freaking sound of catfight in the middle of the night. As I open my eyes, I could not find my uncle. I was again left alone.  I remember myself struggling to choose between crying and shouting. At that movement, I thought if I had the power to disappear because I started feeling like a group of ghosts has surrounded me. Moreover, my eyes started seeing my neighbor's uncle among them. I was scared to death and nothing was helpful for me at that movement. I remember curling myself inside the blanket and forcefully closing my eyes until I heard my mother calling me to pass her torch.  I have grown up fearing such things until my mother was admitted to Mongar hospital.

It was during April, 2019 when my mother got dermatitis and admitted to Mongar hospital.  I was on vacation after class 12 and I was doing a temporary job at Wangdue. On that particular day, I received a call from my mother informing me about her situation. I attended to her as soon as I heard that she was admitted. I had to stay in hospital for almost two months.  In the hospital, I experienced a lot of new things.  I used to see patients admitting to hospital and leaving the world the next day. As always, I have struggled for the first few weeks but later I realized that it is a never-ending process. When I was in the hospital, I had a friend who was admitted on the same day when my mother got admitted. At first, I have seen her health was improving until one day when she was sick again. It was during our fourth week of stay when she was sick again. I remember seeing her eyes turned to yellow and she could barely open her mouth. The doctor inserted a pipe into her for food and breath. After five days of feeding through the pipe, a doctor informed them that she stops breathing. Instead of fearing her body at that time, I was sad and started missing her. I wished for seeing her again.

Therefore I feel that the environment we live in affects our cognitive development. After experiencing the hospital scene, I became spiritually strong. I now can accept that everyone has to leave the world. Similarly, I came to know that the dead are to be experienced by everyone and the reality of all living beings. After seeing many people dying frequently, I was used to it and now I do not fear dead bodies anymore.  I even went to guard the body of my neighbor before his funeral. And I strongly believe that I was able to change the way I think about the dead body because of my experience in the hospital.

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