If I would ever see you again...

Life is full of encounters. You meet a hell lot of people, you interact with some, you like a few and you love even fewer people. But irrespective of the strata they occupy in the hierarchy of your regard/heart, fact remains that they have to end. Some of these encounters/relationships end in so to say a physical state of being (when someone passes away, let’s say) and some end at an emotional plane. Both of them are very painful, the first is needless to say pure pain and the second is pain plus complexities plus heartburns plus what not. Neways, coming back to the title of the blog (the famous song, I think of Lenny Kravitz), how does it feel to have that final encounter, either because of that physical or the emotional factors which would completely change the status-quo of things. Either the person won’t be there or the feeling won’t be there anymore. Till date there are two final encounters that I will possibly never ever forget. The first was with my Dad when one small absolutely insignificant mistake on my part ballooned into a major issue and he was mighty upset with it (not with my mistake but the shape it had taken). He was very upset and at the end of the day, though he wasn’t upset with me I was upset too that I was the trigger of it. I was leaving for my post MBA job that day and ironically that day was the last when me and Dad met in person. He was supposed to come to Bombay after that which he never did and I was supposed to go home for a vacation by which time he had left for his heavenly abode. (6 months after that incident) Even today when I think of it, I just cannot help kicking myself. If only I hadn’t taken things so casually and things didn’t take the shape they did. If only our final hug wasn’t shrouded with that gloom and pain. Then there is a second final encounter which was on an emotional plane. I don’t mean to say that the scale of loss was as much as the first one but it’s just that it too meant a lot to me. I just had to let go of what could have been something wonderful, no option. I gathered all my guts and prayed that things don’t change but there was no escaping destiny. That’s about it. Go, went, gone… This brings me to another point. Is it better that you know it’s the last encounter or to put it in another way; is it better to be aware of the fact that shortly things are to change. The answer like most cases is a yes and a no. Being aware helps you prepare in a better way. You know it’s the last, so lets make it special. If someone is dying, why not recite his favorite poems, devotional music etc, why not do all those religious things that are to be done. If its at an emotional plane, why not do all those things for one last time, just one more time before it all ends. However in a most of cases, it’s a No as well. For example, in the first case of death, knowing most of the times signify death brought about by illness which I must tell is an extremely saddening experience for everyone. There is little more killing than seeing your loved ones succumb to something and you being a useless piece of shit, unable to do anything. As for emotional separation, well how does it feel to see a relationship die down and you wanting to do something about it but failing in all your endeavors. The encounter in this case is never a last, it’s always a step towards the last and when the last finally arrives, well it hardly has any significance. All the things are already lost.