In Class Reflective Writing

How do we understand the value of life? Everybody so plainly, easily says that life is sacred; but how are we supposed to really "grasp" its importance when the concept itself is so broad and abstract? Sure, we breathe, we eat, we sleep, we walk, and thus, we live, but the "gravity" of life and death cannot be educated to the same group that simply. The answer is simple: we simply have to encounter death in order to truly understand what life is and how much importance it bears.
Although the idea of interpreting "life" through "death" seems a little ironic, it is the truth. People "feel" life only when they have witnessed the breaths of their beloved ones gradually fading away. They understand the immeasurable amount of value life embraces only after they have experienced the mournful sorrows of the deceased's relatives, or, possibly, their own's. The elder monk employed this exact method to enlighten his young pupil of the severity of his actions. The child could realize how malignant and atrocious his acts had been to other "lives" through his first-hand experience of the same ordeal and furthermore, the death of his victims. Just like the old sayings, experiencing was again, the best means of learning, even in such fundamental matters such as death.
As for myself, I'd witnessed the death of a person twice, both of them being my friend's parents. The only reason I can be confident in writing this reflection is because my belief roots from my personal experience. Tragically, both cases were the cases of the friends here, at KMLA, and I'd attended the funerals both times to console my friends. I wouldn't want to elaborate on the details once again, but I must say that the loss is nothing I could have imagined or evaluated until the very moment-when I saw the portrait of the deceased, bowed, turned around and saw the sullen eyes of my friend. For a second, I thought the eyes in the portrait were literally looking at me, full of sorrow and sadness, and I froze; I felt something unimaginably heavy and painful weighing down on my chest. If someone actually had had a similar experience, he or she would understand what I'm talking about. That was when I genuinely understood the gravity of death, and paradoxically, the gravity of life as well. I "felt" how meaningful the person on the picture had been to his friends and families. I "felt" how valuable and meaningful his life had been, by itself and to the world.
In spite of our government's enthusiastic campaigns preaching about the value of life, suicide rates in our country keep going up and up. Numerous people choose to give their lives up because they think their life is so miserable and unbearable; they think nothing could be worse than their lives themselves. However, there is, and it's called "death". Most of those who intentionally give up their right to live underestimate their desire to live. They underestimate the intrinsic value their every living moments contain. According to an interesting research, over 90% of the people who had attempted to commit suicide but miraculously had survived admitted they had regretted their decision when they were about to face death. So, maybe this result suggests how we can curb suicide after teachers, parents, friends, professionals, and even our national government had vigorously tried but failed to do so. "The encounter of death"-that is what would, once again ironically, make the people who are about to jump off their apartments reconsider their reckless decisions. Since the "lack" of something is what most effectively teaches its importance, people would learn to value their lives-or every life-when they had faced death and its excruciating brutality. Remember the painful outcries of our repenting young monk.

I've learned how thankful I am to be alive through their (friend's parents') lessons.
Requiescat in pace. May the deposed rest in peace.