Birth. Pain. Joy. This is the beginning of life with pain and sorrow.

Suffering. Pain. Death. This is the circle of life as it completes.

We are the seasons of hope, love, despair and anguish.

We try to push death away, shooing him away, asking him not to visit.

But from the day we are born, he is spying on us, waiting with his scythe, waiting to cut our life thread and take us from this world.

We love, live, laugh and celebrate in life’s triumphs and sweet moments.

We cry, crawl and scream in agony when life disappoints and breaks our hearts.

Death is there, watching and waiting.

A frenemy.

Not a friend but a companion.

Not an enemy but a killer of hopes and dreams in the end.

He comes without an appointment to snatch us up,

Wringing the last sweet drops of life out of us.

We can’t escape him even when we run.

Sometimes we run fast and leave him in the distance,

But sometimes he is at our heels,

His foul stench reminds us that we are not safe.

One day, we will lose the marathon we have kept winning.

One day, he will be at the fishing line before us,

He will cut the thread binding us to this earth.

Death will have his victory lap.

Copyright @Rayhab Gachango 2026