In less than a month I had to hear from
three of my close friends that someone close to them had passed away. Three
times in less than a month I had to come up with words that could offer hope
and understanding in situations that will never be clear to anyone, but would
still be painful to everyone. Both life and death is ironic.
Death has no respect for the living. The
fucker shows up without an invitation; barging though our backdoors while we
try to enjoy every slice of toasted brown bread to stay healthy. I guess
sometimes his presence serves as reminders that we have only so much time to do
the things we love and take enough photos with the ones we love but I still
hate the cowardice son of a bitch. No one gave him any right to step into my
friends’ lives; mess up their rooms and leave their floors scattered with wet
tissues- confetti of his after party.
I have lost my parents at an early age. I
was three when my father passed away; 21 and in prison when my mother died. I have
no recollections of my dad and my mother left two brothers and two sisters with
a house and no will. I can’t remember crying when my dad passed away and I
remember I didn’t shed a single tear for my mother. I wasn’t even allowed to
attend her funeral. I have lost all respect for death and every friend he
brings along: chaos, fear, pain, confusion, remorse. I don’t shake hands with
them and I certainly don’t eat with them after the funeral.
What makes it okay for people to say that
no parent should outlive their children? Where does this come from; as if it is
supposed to be okay for parents to die before their children? I don’t get it. The
Bible says a wise person think about death a lot while the fool thinks about
only having a good time now. Isn’t that called living? To laugh, have fun, and
seek eternity in each moment?
I find myself to be awkwardly, and
extremely superficial at funerals. I feel like Hitler who would, by some
miracle chance, stand in front of the Jewish community and show true remorse for
the evil he had done to them. Truth is, at all the funerals I’ve been to,
whenever I find myself circling through the perfect clichés, hoping this time I
would mean it, I walk away hating myself for it a little bit more than the
previous time. Every time I’m at a funeral the barbarian in me wants to scream,
“Death is assured but it’s not ultimate”. We’re all going to die. In the flesh,
no one makes it out alive. Not that
anyone would care because no one prepares for it, except with funeral plans and
Sanlam policies.
Our stories are precious and sacred. It
doesn’t matter how bad a person has lived their story, the value of it can
never be decreased. Also, to have lived a long life doesn’t mean necessarily
you have lived a full life.
Last night a young 16-year old boy’s story
was cut short. The last words he spoke to his mother was, “I’ll be back”...so
painful yet so profound. Pain always has beauty locked up somewhere inside of
it every time, if we choose to search for it.
We
shall return, all of us. In the new, in Christ we shall be back. In Christ we
shall be renewed and return without the hatred towards death because only through
death will we appreciate the resurrection.
And the resurrection is always a beautiful
thing.
