In a letter written anonymously to the American Journal of Medicine, a doctor gives a detailed account of a woman patient’s protracted illness when all efforts towards her recovery had failed. He tells of how tired she had become of her life, and of how he brought that life to an end: “I put a patient suffering from terminal cancer to sleep forever to end her misery.”

Man considers death to be the end of life. But it is, in reality, the event which launches man on his migration from the temporary to the eternal life. It is the decisive moment when man, after the expiry of his time of trial, is faced with the results. In the words of a Hadith, it is the Great Day of Reckoning, when man will appear before his Maker to be judged.

Illness is a warning. It is nature’s alarm that awakens the slumbering individual to the necessity of preparing in advance for what is to come.

There is no doubt that illness is a great affliction. But if looked at as a reality of life, it should be regarded as more of a blessing. This is because it brings one a timely reminder that the final stage of life is near at hand. It also alerts one to any laxity of which one may have been guilty. It is, therefore, nature’s alarm that awakens the slumbering individual to the necessity of preparing in advance for what is to come. Illness, in that sense, is a warning. But the ignorant ones, who take illness purely as an affliction, remain unaware to the very last, of the lesson that it is designed to bring them.