Life & Death: What are we made of?

Today was a very eventful day. I'm in KKB hospital for my rotations posting, part of the IMU curiculum.

It began with a silent prayer...asking God for a good learning experience. Quietly I wanted to witness a childbirth. I thought witnessing a normal delivery would be better before seeing any complicated one. Anyway, I didn't wanna be traumatized till I resolve not to bear any children in my entire life... Secondly, I was hoping to see a dead body or a post-mortem, knowing that all the groups preceeding me were unlucky.

So the day began...

News came that a mother would be delivering soon while I was bathing. So, I rushed all the way to the labour room. To cut the whole story short, she gave birth to a healthy 3.2kg son without any complication....Hurray! You know, watching the boy emerging from the mother and taking his first breath of air was so beautiful... I nearly shed a tear. (Btw I wasn't the only one) I kind of pitied the mother as she had to deliver her son, half exposed in front of 20 pairs of curious eyes.

It truly is wonderful to think about this gift from the Father called "life". We should each thank God for ourselves, being healthy as so much complications can arise right from our conception to birth.

Later the director of the hospital told us that there are 2 bodies in the morgue-cum-forensic unit. So we all rushed there....I really didn't know how to feel or expect, as I've never seen a dead person before....

As we opened the wooden door to see the naked body of a middle-aged man who had died in a MVA(motor vehicle accident). They were wiping him dry after washing him and stitching up his wounds. Later they dressed him up and sprayed him with lots and lots of deodarant and sterilizer. In the process they broke his arm as rigor mortis had already began to set in! A coffin was brought in and he was placed into his final bed....

Lying on a strecther at the corner of the room was a body of a 15-year old Indian girl. She had committed suicide....sigh.... by ingesting 50 tablets of paracetamol. The police incharged informed us that her boyfriend had left her....And so there she laid, lifeless while the medical assistant injected formalin into her abdomen.

And it struck me....Hadn't the girl thought of her parents, especially her mom who must have loved her so much? Who carried her for 9 long months and endured all the pain to bring her into the world? How much is this thing called "life" worth? Do we have the right to take it away?
Later that afternoon, I saw her parents outside the forensic unit. The mom was crying and wailing uncontrollably............

My principle now is : Love God first. 2nd, parents and family and only 3rdly friends includes boy/girlfriend. Of course in loving God and those around, you'll learn to love yourself.

Thinking 2 bodies were enough, a third came in. He was brought in by a police truck, all covered in newspaper, lifeless. It was standard procedure for the police to investigate the C.O.D. (cause of death) in any MVA. So the autopsy was scheduled for the afternoon.

The time came, and I was dressed up in the green surgical gown standing in fromt of the bloodied and messed up body with 8 other friends. Like in CSI, the clothings were cutted opened and each wound was noted and measured. Then the shocking part....

Armed with a scapel the assistant cut the scalp from the right ear to the left. Then he pulled down the whole scalp and forehead like a mask exposing the bloodied skull! The room was immediately transformed into a bengkel when the assistant took an electric saw and began to saw the skull. Satisfied he had cut all the neccesary angles, he toook a chisel and hammer and began to chisel out the skull exposing the brains!
Digging his hands into the cavity, he dug out the whole cerebrum...
To sum it all up, he later dissected the chest and abdomen to determine the C.O.D. After all is said and done, the body was sutured back.

Looking at the post-mortem real-life, made me pondered about life and death. The 3 people in the morgue were dead. They were once human beings like you and me, living their separate lifes. But "life" was taken away. As we watched how the assistants and doctors mingled with their earthly remains, one can't help but think whatever happened to their souls, the factor that gave them "life"....

So, what are you made of? Who and why do you live for? What happens after death?
Read 2 Cor 5:6-10, if you can.