Days grow into weeks, weeks become months, and months grow into years. Day and night come and go in cycles. We all go to sleep at night and get up for a refreshing day with the dawn. Then, we go about doing our routine work. We never realize a change until we fall sick or grow old. Growing old brings changes within our body and also shows a change in physical appearance.
The color of the hair changes, the brisk walk slows down and it takes at least a few minutes to get up if we sit down. We prefer to sit on chairs and travel in vehicles instead of straining our nerves. Old age brings in all the changes; some may be positive and some may be negative.
One more strong truth strikes us; getting old means moving towards the end of life. We may not know when we will die, but a realization comes that reminds us every day that getting old means meeting death at any time. Challenges of life didn’t bother old people and they went on with their routine work. Relaxing and remembering their young days, they tend to think about the moments that made them feel happy the most and feel hopeful that they will reach their goals.
Seasonal changes affect our lives also. Though we accept the challenges the changing seasons may throw at us, we forget to understand that our lives are also in transition. We keep moving from one thing to another.
The transformations that plants undergo are much like transitions and not endings. Dormancy rules nature because a seed will not grow into a sapling until it finds all the conditions fulfilled. A seed must have adequate water, sufficient sunlight and air to germinate.
A seed will not die. It can be there in a dormant state for years and it will sprout immediately if it finds a suitable environment. There is no dormancy for mankind. Death brings an end to the struggles and challenges they face every day to lead a better life.
Animals go into hibernation. For plants, the seeds go dormant. But for human beings, nature has given the rule of death. You are born, grow, live life to the fullest and finally have to accept death as it is the rule of nature.
Death can be a reliever of all problems in life. Death after a fulfilled life is always a welcoming one. But, if it happens in the prime of life shatters not only the near and dear, but it also abruptly disturbs the number of young adults who will be shouldering the responsibilities in future.
Matured, and unmatured age-old populations may offer better advice or guide the younger ones at times of need.
Time slips by like sand through fingers. Days turn to years, and before we know it, life’s hustle leaves wrinkles where smooth skin once lived. Hair turns silver, knees creak, and mornings start slower. But hidden in these changes are stories—stories that stitch the young and old together.
Take Mrs. Elara. Every dawn, she sits by her window, cradling a chipped teacup. Her hands, rough and weather-beaten, tell tales of gardens planted, babies rocked, and storms survived. When Leo, her 20-something neighbor, frets over a dying sapling in his yard, she invites him into her wild, overgrown garden. “See this tree?” she says, pointing to a gnarled fig bursting with fruit. “Ten years it gave me nothing. Now? It feeds birds, ants, even the wind that steals its leaves. Patience,” she winks.
Leo watches her stroke the tree’s bark, as if she was listening to the tree itself. “Seasons don’t rush,” she adds. “Winter teaches roots to grow deeper. Spring’s just a bonus.” He asks if she’s ever scared of time running out. She laughs, a sound like wind chimes. “Child, my husband’s been gone 12 years, but I still hear him in the rain. Love doesn’t rot. It waits.”
Across town, old Mr. Finnigan shuffles into a room of bored teens. They’re here for “history class,” but he’s got no textbooks. Instead, he spins a story about a frozen battlefield, where enemies shared cigarettes under a shared moon. “Funny thing,” he says, leaning in. “When you realize the person across from you isn’t so different, fear just… fades away.” A girl asks, “Aren’t you scared of dying?” He grins. “Dying? Nah. But I’ll miss ice cream.”
Not all stories end gently, though. At the hospital, 37-year-old Mira grips her father’s hand as machines hum like angry bees. Cancer stole him too fast—no silver hair, no creaky knees. Her heart screamed—how could the world keep turning when her world was stopping? Later, in his dusty workshop, she finds a half-carved wooden owl. She finishes it, her tears staining the wings. Now it sits on her desk, a reminder that even broken things can soar.
Some say old folks just “take up space.” But in hidden corners of the world, they’re the glue. In Kerala, grandmas grind spices with stone pestles—thud, thud, thud—a rhythm that’s passed down recipes, and grit, for generations. In Tokyo, grandmas stitch torn kimonos, each thread a whisper: “Mend what’s ripped. Try again.”
Back in her garden, Mrs. Elara hands Leo a jar of fig jam. “From that stubborn tree,” she says. He asks, “Don’t you ever feel… forgotten?” She points to a chrysalis dangling from a branch. “That caterpillar thinks it’s the end. Imagine its surprise when it becomes wings!” She pats his cheek. “We’re all just… practicing for what comes next.”
That night, Leo walks home, the jam jar glowing like captured sunlight. He glances up at the stars—old, old souls, burning bright before they explode into something new. Endings, he thinks, aren’t walls. They’re secret doors.
And so life spins on—wrinkled hands planting seeds for smooth ones to water. We grow. We fade. We become stories. And stories? They never really end.
Growing up in an environment enriched with colours of nature adorned with sounds of machines, I enjoyed life with all challenges. Nature is always a great teacher that teaches empathy to live and let live others. Though I am now living in an urban environment, the lesson that nature taught me motivates and allows me to keep on writing. I will always remember the cool afternoons in the shades of trees that made me write more on love.