Blog by Sumana Harihareswara, Changeset founder
This past weekend, I thought a heck of a lot…
Hi, reader. I wrote this in 2001 and it's now more than five years old. So it may be very out of date; the world, and I, have changed a lot since I wrote it! I'm keeping this up for historical archive purposes, but the me of today may 100% disagree with what I said then. I rarely edit posts after publishing them, but if I do, I usually leave a note in italics to mark the edit and the reason. If this post is particularly offensive or breaches someone's privacy, please contact me.
This past weekend, I thought a heck of a lot about birth and death. Today, my mother told me that a guy I knew in high school, Avi Raina, died yesterday. I met him many times. Our families were friends. The last time I saw him we were praying together a few months ago. He was a senior in college studying economics. He won lots of speech and debate awards. He was twenty-two years old, younger than many of my friends. He died of a long illness, cancer of the lymph nodes, and my mom and his family prayed together that he would recover, but yesterday he died, someone I knew, and I never really knew him, and now I'll never have the chance.
When I checked my email just now, I found out that a couple that John knows is going to have a child.
Would I be ready to have a child? Creating the future: how could I have a more important job? How rewarding, how fulfilling, how honorable!
But I would have to accept the possibility of experiencing what the Raina family just did. Is anyone ever ready for that?
