In this wedge of time be­tween Di­vali and Christ­mas, for­give me if sen­ti­men­tal­i­ty has crept in. An­oth­er com­rade has fall­en —Er­rol Pil­grim. When I think of him, I hear his voice, sign­ing off on a news sto­ry on TTT. More than his work, I think of his wide toothy smile from a dis­tance. He didn’t know me well but al­ways made me feel like he some­how saw me. By that, I mean he didn’t get glazed eyes when he met mine. He nod­ded. He saw me, and I saw him.

Er­rol’s death makes me think of an­oth­er friend who went to Mount Kailash two years ago. The first place his Gu­ru took him was to a mass ground of fu­ner­al pyres. The Gu­ru made the group look at the burn­ing pyres till they turned from hu­man form to ash.

“This is who we are,” he in­formed the group as rel­a­tives picked up the ash­es of their loved ones. “Two ki­los of top­soil.”

No, it’s not de­press­ing. It’s a re­minder to treat every mo­ment on earth as if it’s pre­cious, and not just to our­selves, to oth­ers. If hu­mans want im­mor­tal­i­ty, we on­ly get it in re­la­tion to oth­ers.

A friend of mine has been wid­owed. He lost his rel­a­tive­ly young wife—to can­cer. He called me from a hos­pi­tal in Toron­to, say­ing she’d gone, still warm, still on her death bed. He hadn’t yet in­formed the hos­pi­tal staff. “I’m sit­ting here with my love.”

Hours be­fore he’d held her hand said, “I’ll al­ways look out for you.” She whis­pered back, “And I will look out for you.”

When I think of my friend’s wife, I re­mem­ber her teas­ing wit that missed noth­ing, her in­ter­est in oth­er peo­ples sto­ries, as if with­in oth­ers, she would find the an­swers to ques­tions she sought for her­self.

Her last words to me on Face­book in Au­gust were of hope— “I hope I make it to the New Year.” And kind­ness. A heart and a kiss. She was in pain and still look­ing out for me. As long as I re­mem­ber her, she’s still here.

If we want im­mor­tal­i­ty, we want peo­ple to be look­ing out for us af­ter we are gone.

In our last (in­evitable) mo­ments to take away the fright and lone­li­ness of dy­ing, we want some­one to say, “I’m look­ing out for you.”

No mat­ter how priv­i­leged or hap­py your cir­cum­stances are, most hu­mans suf­fer from Post-Trau­mat­ic Stress Dis­or­der. Maybe you re­mem­ber ne­glect or a sharp as a child, or as an adult, you could have been cheat­ed or suf­fered psy­cho­log­i­cal or phys­i­cal vi­o­lence by some­one you trust­ed and loved. And I haven’t touched on pan­demics, pover­ty, or crime here.

Most hu­mans are in fight or flight mode. It’s glar­ing in our cell phone eti­quette and on so­cial me­dia.

Peo­ple who dis­agree with us trig­ger our pain, re­mind us of some­one else who in­flict­ed it on us, and bring on a sweaty fight or flight im­pulse at the per­son be­fore us. So we ei­ther fight: pul­verise them with abuse, or block or stonewall -any­thing to es­cape the self-ex­am­i­na­tion.

Yet deep in­side, we still want peo­ple to say, “I am look­ing out for you.”

We want them to say, “You’re bet­ter than good enough. You’re great.”

Some demon­strate this need by post­ing pho­tos of them­selves on­line, in bed, with a pouty mouth, a dance. It’s not about the pho­to. It’s the shout­ing need say­ing. “look at me, look out for me.” But we know so­cial me­dia is a mi­rage, a faith­less rab­bit hole that aban­dons you once you get bor­ing or needy.

Per­haps, if we wres­tle the “fight and flight” mon­ster in our­selves, pause when trig­gered and think deeply about what the oth­er per­son is say­ing and where they are com­ing from, we would re­spond dif­fer­ent­ly.

In­stead of block­ing or stonewalling or turn­ing abu­sive, we could say, “Ok, what are you re­al­ly say­ing here? How can we meet in the mid­dle? How can we each get some­thing of what we want in­stead of go­ing the way of mass de­struc­tion?

“Sor­ry,” “Please” and “Thank You” fix­es a lot. It im­plies that you re­gard oth­er peo­ples feel­ings high­ly. Yet some who mis­tak­en­ly feel they are in con­trol find these words so hu­mil­i­at­ing they’d rather die than ut­ter them, thus los­ing a chance to con­nect with oth­ers.

By de­feat­ing the ‘fight or flight mon­ster,’ you see be­yond your PTSD, be­yond your­self. You recog­nise their hu­man­ness—They are fight­ing sim­i­lar bat­tles, try­ing to sur­vive. You lis­ten. You col­lab­o­rate.

Help oth­ers. Make friends. You find peo­ple who say, “I am look­ing out for you.” And you re­ply, “And I am look­ing out for you.” And that, my friends, is the on­ly thing that mat­ters.