We Are All Alone

We are all alone. Who was the sage who said that we are born alone and alone we will die? We may also add to that that we are going to live our lives alone until our last breath. This stark bit of wisdom is hard to accept but it never fails to ring a bell to those who have stumbled consciously on this reality.

During our formative years, we are deluded that we are never alone. Our parents are always there beside us, plus we are constantly surrounded by other relatives and friends. In school, besides developing the notion that we are immortal, we believe that we would enjoy till eternity the companionship of our classmates and best buddies. We have the faith that the bond that we have formed with our college friends will deliver us from separation.

It will be too late and seems to soon for us to realize that there is an end with our friendship with our classmates. Right after graduation, we know now that each one of us has to take different path in life. Even if we stay in touch with them once they are in the real world, the connection thins out especially if they got into marriage already. They pass on the get-togethers and informal reunions then, finally, they just disappear out of the circulation.

The idea that we are alone will only dawn on us after several stints in various jobs. When we go to our first jobs and if asked one of the reasons why we want the job, we may answer that we want to meet new friends. Like a habit we have formed in our schooldays, we are deluded that this job will be our last and the co-workers we befriended here will be there beside us forever. But unlike in school, our tenure in this job depends on many factors and it is not unexpected that we may lose it any day. And when we lose our job we lose also our friends there. We are no longer part of the organization and we will find ourselves alone. Friends in the work place come and go as we transfer to different organizations, and there are there mainly to give us an itinerant companionship.

There may come the time when we will also get married and find our partner in life. The hope of making the relationship last until both of you grow old is intense and grave. Probably, if separation or annulment is avoided, you’ll reach the autumn season of your lives together. But somehow, as it is inevitable, one may go first in going back to the Creator. And the one who is left behind will find that he is all alone after all.

Can we say then that the one who past away first never lived alone? Does the fact that he or she died beside his/her partner mean so? On the contrary, the dead person at the hour of his death gets the illumination of his circumstances that he has been alone all the time as manifested by his departure; he was born alone and will die alone.

We are all alone.