— Ali Zandani
While I was reading the great work of Tolstoy “The Death of Ivan Ilyich”, a lot of thoughts and questions came to my mind, what if this great story of Ivan Ilyich was meant to relate to everyone that reads it? because I believe that this story of Ivan Ilyich relates to everyone’s life at this point in time with all the pandemic that is threatening people’s lives around the world. The death of Ivan Ilyich speaks about a man who spent most of his life building his social status and career path with worldly things like money and promotions. However, all the blessings he was getting from his career made him forget about what’s most important than his career and wealth which is his family. Not until he got ill and started realizing that he had lived his whole life wrong. at that moment he knew that all his money and promotions he was getting were worthless because he is going to die and leave everything behind him. As he was on his deathbed and saw that his wife and kids acted as if nothing was to be worried about, Ivan started questioning himself about what he have done wrong and realized that this is just the consequence of him isolating himself from his family.
This story of Ivan strongly connects to our lives today while being quarantined inside our homes for more than 3 weeks and god knows for how long we will be quarantined. Before the coronavirus started, my life seemed to be normal and I was very busy at the same time, where I would go to college and work full time and only go home to sleep. As a result, I hardly see my family members or even talk to them and sometimes I don’t even see my father for a couple of days because we are all busy working or going to school. All of this hard work and perseverance was to make a better living And have a comfortable life in the near future. However, After the spread of coronavirus and being home quarantined and almost living in panic, this made me realize that I was making the materialistic things my priorities just like Ivan Ilyich. With all the harm this virus can and did cause to other people, but it has a positive side to it. it actually reconnected me with my parents and siblings. Fortunately, these hard times have implanted in me important values where family comes first and worldly things like money and building my career path are things to make up for. The only difference between me and Ivan Ilyich is that I’m very lucky that I still have time to fix the things I did wrong in the past where Ivan was already late in realizing his mistakes because he was going to die regardless.
