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The moment you die, your identity becomes a body. Today I came across that thought, and it felt quietly humbling.
It took me back to a cold day in February, a few decades ago — to the day I rushed home from Delhi, the wind slicing through the airport glass, my mind racing faster than the wheels beneath me. My father had suffered a stroke. The flight was delayed by Delhi’s infamous fog, and by the time I reached home, he had already left this world.
Everyone waited for him to come home. I expected to see my father — strong, tired, gentle all at once. For years he had been a husband, a father, a brother, an uncle, a friend, a colleague — many things to many people. But when he arrived, no one said his name. No one called out a relation.
They said, “The body is here.”
In that instant, language stripped love of its titles. My father — a voice, a laugh, a presence that filled rooms — was now the body.
The body we idolize, critique, measure, compare and mold is, in many ways, deeply mechanical. It takes in breath, food, admiration, comfort — all the good things life offers — and when it releases, it releases what it no longer needs. Everything that leaves the body in its natural course — even through our skin, our eyes, our breath — is something unwanted.
And yet, there is one exception.
This very body has the ability to release something that is not waste, not toxin, not discard. Through the tongue, we can offer kindness, compassion, gentleness, truth. We can speak warmth into cold moments and remind someone they matter.
Perhaps that is how we outlive ourselves — not through the body that is eventually reduced to silence, but through the words it once carried.
If it’s just a body, let my words linger.
