Lifeless: Reflections on death
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I had always wanted to experience washing a dead body. Not only would it be an honor, but it would also help me understand more about what will be one of my first experiences after my own death.
For a school project, I decided to make a video reflection on death, narrated by two women who regularly wash Muslim bodies in our Raleigh community.
I used this project as an opportunity to learn about the different aspects of death: I finally helped with a body, I visited the cadaver lab at my university’s medical school; I witnessed a burial for the first time.
One of the most difficult shots in the video is near the end, for which I had to lie down in a freshly dug grave. I’ve heard that a historic Islamic scholar dug his own grave and would lay down in it every morning to remember where he was headed. It’s funny to me that most people don’t notice this shot unless I point it out. That’s perhaps symbolic of the fact that all of us, including myself, are largely inattentive to our own end.
“From the earth We created you, into it shall We return you, and from it We shall raise you a second time.“
In the meantime, what can we do to prepare?
One of the narrator states, “Only goodness will count in the hereafter.”
Nushmia Khan is a multimedia journalist based in Chicago, USA.
I have a friend who is worried since he heard a panel of Physicist on NPR talk about the Andromeda Galaxy headed our way and will crash with our Milky Way and destroy our Solar System in 400 billion years from now.
Personally I don't care if its 400 billion years of 4 minutes away.
I have to get up in the morning and go to work.
Did it occur to you that there may not an after life — this may be it.
Then what?
Nushmia, nice article and we all need to follow the good things in life for goodness.
Excellent thinking.
An excellenct choice regarding the Quranic quote!
An eye opener….
An excellent piece of work. Choice of subject at this stage of your life speaks volume of your character. God Bless
no doubt