I haven’t spent more than a month at home in seven years. To make up for lost time, my mother and I have chai, in scant Lahori breeze, on our balcony most evenings. While we bicker about the latest WhatsApp forwards, our neighbours step out on their balcony, forcing us to reduce the decibel levels. Usually we exchange the occasional head bobbing salam with Major saheb and his wife. (I’ve never known Major saheb’s name, but I associate him with my memories of home. Last week, he stepped out for a regular doctor’s appointment in the morning. By evening, he had passed away.)

On Friday last, I checked in with my best friend, Asad, as I usually do at the beginning of the weekend. We had planned on meeting, but our urge to leave home was immediately shut down by our mothers. Instead, we settled for the weekly phone call in these times of Covid-19. However, that night, we were miserable.

Asad had just learned that his childhood friend had died because of unforeseen complications related to depression. His friend was a gifted physicist. He was kind and brilliant. I never knew him well enough, but he was one of those faces one associates with school breaks and canteens. He died at 23.

These days, I think of death often. I wonder if I’ll get to say bye to my parents when their time comes, which I hope is far, far away. I think about what it’s like being unable to physically embrace my loved ones in times of abject sorrow. I think about what it’s like to have family members die in foreign lands, alone and without family and friends. I think about what it’s like to experience deep sadness. I think about my parents, the two individuals who are the centre of my universe. I wonder what my world would look like in their absence. I think about the unimaginable pain of losing a child. These days, I think about my mortality every waking moment.

These days, I think of death often. I wonder if I’ll get to say bye to my parents when their time comes, which I hope is far, far away. I think about what it’s like being unable to physically embrace my loved ones in times of abject sorrow.

Ironically, both of the aforementioned deaths weren’t caused by the pandemic. Yet they seem to fit perfectly into the hysterical narrative of people dropping off without a minute’s notice. They make one reflect on the environment we live in. The environment which impacts the air we breathe, the head space we are in — our physical and mental health.

If these past few months have taught me one lesson, it is that we are truly a product of our environment. Pandemics and poor mental health don’t fall out of the sky. They compound and fester over time, when we forget what it’s like to tamper with nature. When we forget the true cost of growing food in inhumane ways which ruins both the land it is grown on and the people that feed on it. Human beings, specifically kids, are born with empathy, kindness and tolerance. We are taught to go against our innate nature and be unkind, to bully, to belittle, to injure, to not question wrongdoing.

Over these past few months, and specifically this week, I have been deeply reflecting on the environment I live in. The air I breathe and the spaces I occupy and those I once occupied. I try to wrap my head around how these factors intersect to shape my circumstances and the circumstances of those who’ll follow me. I look forward to the little I can do to transform the environment that surrounds me. I try to distinguish between an aberration and the inevitable. I think of new ways to not think about death.

The writer is a graduate of New York University,  Shanghai. He tweets at @Alhan_Fakhr