Strangers’ Graves in the Woods
Valuable Life Lesson in a Graveyard
Once upon a time in the old days, a man decided to travel to another city ( that they said was a magic one) trying to explore new opportunities and start a new life. After days of walking and just before reaching his destination, a beautiful green hill took his attention. The hill seems like a house of all colors of life. Many beautiful trees, flowers, birds, and so on and so forth make the place unique and attractive. This beauty was more than enough to stop the traveler and ignite the fire of his curiosity and enforced him to stop walking and decide to spend some time there.
He walked there between the trees while his eyes were busy trying to absorb every drop of charm and every detail of exquisiteness. Out of a sudden, he saw a gravestone. On that gravestone, he saw a single phrase “ He lived 8 years, 6 months, 2 weeks, and three days”. He felt so bad for that kid. He walked a bit more to see another gravestone with a similar phrase “ He lived three years, 5 months, and three weeks”. He kept on walking finding so many other similar graves of kids. It seemed that all of them died at a young age. The traveler felt so sad and so emotional that he burst into tears”. In this stormy status of tears, emotion, and sadness in this field of “kids` graves” under the sun of life, a man appeared out of nowhere and walked towards the crying traveler and asked him gently about the reason for his tears.
“ Feeling so bad for all those innocent kids who died without experiencing life well,” the traveler said while pinpointing the graves.
“ You don't need to be that sad. Those graves are not of kids” said the man
“ Then? “ said the traveler while struggling between the threads of surprise, tears, and curiosity like a cat.
“ In this village, we have the habit of holding a notebook like this one,” he said while showing a notebook he holds in his hands. He was silent for a couple of seconds and then he continued “ We write down here what makes us happy and joyful and the duration of happiness and joy. For example, the first kiss could make you happy for three weeks, a month, two…you name it. Having a kid, getting married, having a nice dinner…etc.
When someone dies we sum up all those days, months, and years of good times and we write them next to the name of the dead person on the gravestone because this time is the unique real living time” said the man.
This was a story by Jorge Bucay the Argentinan psychotherapist in his book ( Stories to think about).
In her book (The Top Five Regrets of the Dying), Bronnie Ware summarized the most repeated regrets that people say while saying goodbye to life:
- I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me. …
- I wish I didn’t work so hard. …
- I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings. …
- I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends. …
- I wish that I had let myself be happier.
Also seems that the real thing that people regret is worth spending time in good company, happiness, and joy.
While we are saying goodbye to a year that ends soon and welcoming a new one we are also saying goodbye to part of our lives, days and times. Therefore it is so worth thinking about spending the rest of our time better on earth.
We are travelers ( like the man in the story) and we are in a nice place ( like him) and it is better to make our stay happier because the journey needs to be continued one day to that magic city.
Love!
Subhi Najar is an Alchemist of words, Little Prince, Public Speaker, storyteller, content Creator, and war survivor.
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