Death of a Stranger

Something happened yesterday. Came home after 5 p.m. and when I was having a bath, I heard my brother saying that someone had fainted outside, just beside the family car which I had parked by the roadside. A man had collapsed and had crawled to our doorstep or in this case gatestep, before passing out! My niece called the ambulance but it seemed to take so long to come. A crowd had gathered outside and none of us knew what to do. The man’s finger had turned yellow and he seemed not to be breathing. The man had passed away! Wasn’t that bad luck to have some stranger died right on your doorstep? The death reminded me of an ancient story from India. There was this heartbroken woman who could not accept the death of her baby. She tried to get a cure for her only child and a wise man was willing to help provided she brought along some mustard seeds from a house where no death had ever occurred. She went from house to house asking for some mustard seeds but unfortunately a death had occurred in every household at one time or another. The woman was thus made to realize that death is very much a reality, something that one could not escape from. Is death at the doorstep or anywhere else at all really bad luck then? There must be another story…