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LAMHIL SEPTEMBER <strong>2012</strong> OPINION<br />
16<br />
Who Will Remember You When You Die<br />
Some people fear death too<br />
much to even think about it. They say its<br />
too morbid. But death is the one certain<br />
thing in life, and it s everywhere around<br />
us. A wise man prepares for death as<br />
ardently as he prepares for life. This way,<br />
when he dies, he would have lived a life<br />
worth remembering long after his demise,<br />
and not only by the people who knew<br />
him personally. Long after his body rots<br />
in the grave he would still touch the hearts<br />
and lives of people who never knew him<br />
or met him personally. Such would be his<br />
legacy. But not all are fortunate enough<br />
to live the life they would have wanted<br />
because death came too soon and too<br />
sudden. On the 13 th of September a<br />
nation remembered as the lives of a<br />
thousand of its own blood was cut<br />
painfully short by the hands of the<br />
adversary, unprovoked and unimagined.<br />
Their lives were snuffed out, their dreams<br />
brought to an abrupt end and their future<br />
rendered non-existent just because they<br />
happened to be a Kuki. And to this day,<br />
those of us who live and bear that name<br />
remember their deaths. We remember<br />
why they are here with us no more and<br />
we mourn their deaths. They have a legacy<br />
we mourn and cherish at the same time.<br />
In this way they occupy a hallowed place<br />
in the hearts and minds of the people they<br />
died for.<br />
We cannot exchange places with<br />
the dead and claim their place of honor.<br />
But unlike them we have the chance, while<br />
-Samuel Lamkholen Haokip<br />
we still breathe, to affect our society in the<br />
way we choose to. Whatever grand or petty<br />
plans the dead have are now reposed in the<br />
grave with their mortal earthly bodies. But<br />
whatever plans we the living have are still<br />
possible. Whichever way you intend to affect<br />
the society can still come true. Will you leave<br />
the society a better place than when you found<br />
it, or will you make it worse? Or, like I had<br />
said in an earlier issue of Lamhil, sometimes<br />
it s not just the things we do that may<br />
constitute wrongdoing, that there are times<br />
when doing nothing itself is a wrongdoing.<br />
Will you be guilty of non-participation?<br />
On the 13 of last month we paid<br />
our tribute to our martyrs who laid down<br />
their lives on that awful day. I m sure all who<br />
came felt the spirit of patriotism anew. Society<br />
remembers and honors them because they<br />
died. But now the society needs to remember<br />
you because you lived. Because you did<br />
something that made our society/nation a<br />
better place than it was yesterday. Because<br />
your children can dream bigger dreams than<br />
the ones you inherited from your parents.<br />
Because you contributed positively to the<br />
brand image of our society. Because<br />
everytime people remember you, you instill<br />
the spirit of patriotism anew. So what legacy<br />
will you leave behind when you die, or when<br />
you leave this city? The dead have their place<br />
in history and so do the living. And the living<br />
will one day join the dead. What will people<br />
tell others about you when you re gone? Who<br />
will remember you when you die?
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