The works of man and God have an expiry date on this planet. The only difference between a product and a human being is death. Products on your shelves need to die to expire but people in your life could expire long before they are dead.
Throughout our lives we build relationships with people who make an impact on our life. We befriend them, marry them, become mothers, fathers, comrades, students, colleagues and neighbors. We fear their deceit more than we fear their death.
The fact that the first man born is also the first murderer born is quite terrifying. Murder was the first form of death mankind ever witnessed. Cain and Abel were the sons of Adam and Eve. Cain killed Abel as a result of jealousy and he didn’t know how to get rid of his body. He then saw a crow burying another one and did the same with his deceased brother.
Death is a natural ending, burying is another and killing is a different one. If we look at modern history, we will see that strong relationships between people ended in unpredictable ways. We’ve seen photos of the late Gamal Abdel Nasser walk hand in hand with his longtime comrade and friend General and Political Leader Abdel Hakim Amer, winning wars, building nations, being there for one another at family events, and then Nasser was accused of killing Hakim in cold blood. Up till now, from rumors of being poisoned to committing suicide, the death of Abdel Hakim Amer remains a mystery. His real tomb remains a mystery as well.
Relationships are considered one of the ugliest forms of expiry dates. Some people deal with it and move on, others tend to lock themselves up in shock and disappointment. The cycle of life in which the big eats the small also applies to human beings but unfortunately, that’s not something we learned in Biology class.
Another form of expiry dates applies also to a person’s lifetime career and achievements. You may spend your whole life sitting behind a desk at a bank and something happens that changes your entire career and sometimes you find a 20-year-old celebrity selling millions of records and dies at 27. When Colonel Sanders, Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, was discharged from the US Army, he took many jobs like being a steamboat pilot, railroad fireman and farmer. His wife left him because of switching so many jobs and not having a stable career. He then decided to follow his passion which was cooking chicken. He started by selling them in a service station. Years passed and he opened a restaurant. The rest is history.
From the cradle to the grave, we tend to expire so many times and only one thing doesn’t expire through your life journey, the power to revive. Life is composed of so many different phases and we shouldn’t connect all events to one another. People who don’t see life as separate phases, one succeeding the other, shall suffer.
“A flying crow always catches something” Dutch Proverb.
