Your Life Before Your Death

There was a death in the community the day before yesterday. The funeral was yesterday. I did not know or meet the woman or her family but I went to the funeral. I went because there is a reward in attending a funeral and I also want people to pray for me when I die. Is that selfish? I'm glad I went because there weren't many people there and I figured we all can use every prayer we get, especially when we die. There's nothing more than can be done except pray for the deceased and hope that their stay in the grave is a comfortable one. 

I don't know her or her life story or her family, but I became pretty emotional. Death isn't easy to deal with. I've attended only a handful of funerals in my life and half of them were 3 of my grandparents'. The fourth I was too young to understand what was going on.

Anyways, everyone is going to die. We just don't know when. And I realized that I should make the most of my day, my hour, my minute, my second. I shouldn't squander my time on things and thoughts that don't matter. Living life to the fullest doesn't mean doing crazy things. I know people have a bucket list of things they want to do in their life, things they must do before they die. Some of those things include sky diving or something daring. That's fine, I have my own list of things I would love to see and do, but we should also try to include more meaningful things. Things that will leave an imprint on people's lives after we die. We should do things that make a difference, because honestly, after we're dead who is going to remember that we jumped out of a plane as a big milestone in our lives?

The prophet Muhammad Peace and blessing be upon him said, "Take advantage of five matters before five other matters: your youth, before you become old; and your health, before you fall sick; and your richness, before you become poor; and your free time before you become busy; and your life, before your death." This is so true. When I'm sick, I regret that I didn't get my work done when I could have. When I'm busy, I mentally kick myself for procrastinating, etc.

If you believe in the Hereafter then invest this time into it, because once we are gone, the only thing that will help you are your good deeds and the only thing that will harm you are your bad deeds. Nothing else, except a few things which can benefit: Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him said, "When a human being dies, all of his deeds are terminated except for three types: an ongoing Charity, a knowledge (of Islam) from which others benefit, and a righteous child who makes supplication for him." (Muslim and others).

So, if you put a water fountain somewhere and people drink from it, you will get the reward for supplying them with water. That's just an example of the first. 

If I can't do something great now, I know I need to work towards being able to do great things in the future. I just hope I can get there before I die and I hope I get an A for effort if I don't make it. 

I planned on writing something happier and less serious, but funerals make me sad.