Discussing Wills

So it's been a busy day. We went to my uncle's house to celebrate the arrival of his first grandchild. Pretty much the whole extended family was there and we had nice food and took nice pictures with the baby.

My aunt's best friend was there too, and I hadn't seen her in quite a bit so we sat down for a bit of a chat about life and what the future held for us all. I like her a lot because she takes the time to listen to what I have to say and cares about what I think about certain things. It's rare for me to find a person who already has a 19 year-old child of her own still willing to listen to and hope to learn from a person significantly younger than herself, so I commend her for that.

Then my uncle came about the dining area and had a conversation with her pulak, and since I didn't need to be anywhere else, I stuck around. They talked about being organised and how one person was more organised than the other, and then they started talking about wills and about needing to write it.

It was the first time I had ever heard people discussing their need to write down their will in front of me. And I guess because they were of that age, it was natural of them to have that on their minds. I felt like I was watching something authentic in daily human interaction, something that I would have to address not too long in the future as well.

They way they talked about it wasn't with weight or exceeding amounts of pressure, even though the topic of discussion was of life and death. They were talking about it as if it were just another thing on the to-do list and the nonchalance of the interaction felt particularly refreshing to me. It is of people who aren't surprised nor afraid that the day that they will leave this world is drawing closer and they have nothing within their power to stop it, and so they accept it and get on with what needs to get done.

While witnessing this conversation, I imagined that I would be as off-handed about my own mortality, but only time shall tell how I react to that reality. Even if it has and continues to stare at me on a daily basis, I've never felt within myself to take it all too seriously. At least not as seriously as making up a will. Drafting that sounds a lot more concrete than long shower contemplations.

Here's to taking life and death seriously and lightly, at the same time.