Memorial service g Whipps Cross Hospital Feb 2020..

Reflection by Ahmad Baker
“On this earth what makes life worth living:
Birth of a child,
Falling in love,
The reoccurrence of April,
And the scent of Coffee at dawn.
On this earth what makes life worth living:
September’s end,
Winter sun shines,
Tears in airports,
And Funerals of loved ones”
Life is too short,
The day I was born was only yesterday, and yesterday was the day I started working here, it’s also yesterday the day I met the many loving and wonderful people, whom I lost yesterday. All my memories happened yesterday and tomorrow I will die. And tomorrow someone else will stand here eulogising me, and tomorrow as today becomes yesterday, I will become a memory.
And today, we are here to celebrate the memory of those whom we lost yesterday, the beautiful loving memory of our friends, colleagues and loved ones. Some we knew for long, some we hardly knew, but all shared with us this place and formed the memory of it.
Memories, funny things they are; charm us with their beauty, sweetness and peace. They play tricks on our minds, as we only enjoy them, no matter how bitter, hard and miserable the moments were, we still enjoy the memory of it..
The tears we weep will not be forever,
The laughs we have will not be forever,
But the memories of them will last forever.
Maybe tomorrow is going to be better than today, maybe there are better things ahead, but we cannot and shall not forget what we have left behind. Forever we will cherish these memories, because every little moment we spend with people we love, changes our lives forever. George Elliott wrote: Our dead are not dead to us, until we have forgotten them..
Life is unbelievably a long journey,
Every day is a new challenge, new adventure, new memories and new pain; never before, and never again.
We make so many stops, short and long, and we leave our marks on places and people everywhere. It may feel short, but when you look back and remember the people you have come across, the people whose lives you’ve touched, you changed forever the people that touched your life and changed it forever, you realise how long the journey has been, how beautiful and how worthwhile it was.
“It is in dying that one is raised to eternal life” St Francis prayer says, and I add that in living in the moment, small or big, we make our life eternal.
Ahmad Baker

*paraphrasing Darwish from his poem on this earth what makes life worth living.