FEATURE
THE Last Chapter OF MY LIFE
Timir Banerjee , MD
I
do not know of any other religion except Hinduism that has divided the stages of life and has assigned responsibilities for each of the four stages from childhood till death . The people of the steppes that came to the East to start the civilization of the Indus valley gave us the Vedas ( Rig Veda is assumed to have been written somewhere between 1700-1100 BCE ) and the Upanishads in Sanskrit . It is from these books that we learned the ways of attaining Moksha . It is not reached by painting our faces with ashes or by smoking Afghani ganja or by being able to stand in a trance or by walking on hot coals or by chanting on a continuous basis Buddhang Sharanang Gacchami .
Ecclesiastes 3:1 “ There is a time for everything , and a season for every activity under the heavens ” says something similar about stages of life . This was believed to have been written by King Solomon ( 900 BCE ) and possibly edited by Hezekiah .
I am writing this to share with my colleagues who will also face their last chapters of life . I have found it important to recognize the time when the “ last chapter ” begins . Mind you , in this book of Life , we cannot look at the end , as we can do in a book , to determine how much time it is going to take to finish the book . In this life , we must progress at a pace designed for us by the Maker . We cannot hasten the journey ( except by self-inflicted wound or chemicals to harm ourselves ) and we cannot slow our pace . The chakra of life has its own speed destined and determined by our genetic makeup long before we were physically delivered on this earth . All of us who have seen the wheels carved onto the Buddhists temples surely sat down next to those and / or wondered the meaning of those wheels .
I am convinced that most of us desire to have a long duration of life and of course the measurement of the length can be chronological or just in terms of what I call “ joyful presence .” I have measured life in chronological terms only because I am a doctor and I had to learn that certain illnesses take certain amounts of time to get better . I memorized many tables and charts regarding longevity of different populations and about risks of death in certain populations and the association of death in certain illnesses . I personally value “ joyful presence ” more than a long duration of life . I was taught as a child that “ desire ” begets desire and that causes suffering because there is no end to “ wanting to do things ,” that which we now call a “ bucket list .” At first we want to see the birth of our children and then their wedding and then grandchildren and so on and so on . All along knowing fully well that it is my desire to live long to see all of those events In Mahabharata , the great epic of India , God in the form of a bird had asked Judhistir , the wise patriarch , what was most surprising to him . He answered that men are born every day and die every day , and yet those alive never think that death is waiting at the door for them too .
So this is what I did to recognize and live my last chapter . After operating till 8 PM three days a week for more than 20 years , I had to decide my future . I felt that I had been running at full speed and cutting through the wind and yet not feeling its lulling effect or its warmth . I was consumed with my work as though I had been placed
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10 LOUISVILLE MEDICINE