DEATH WHERE IS YOUR STING?

The news of passing on of a friend or family is something that no one ever wants to hear or even imagine being told. And yet, it is the most heart breaking news one can ever hear. Forget being rejected or dumped by someone you loved (or thought you loved), forget breaking your hand, finger, toe, nail….heck, none of this types of pains can be compared to the pain of losing a loved one. When it keeps hitting you that you shall never see them again, that you will never get to laugh with them, to hold them, to touch them, to play games with them. You go through countless messages and images that you shared with them. You replay the voice messages and video notes. (By the way; those who say sijui we should not take photos of each and everything we do and of everywhere we go; well, I wrote that mantra you live by on a paper, shoved it in a jar, sealed it and put it in NASA’s LunarProspector, and in case you have not checked; it is not coming down any time soon. Not in the near centuries.) Some of these things are the one and at times only way that we hold pieces of those who left us.

“Just as no human being has control over the wind to restrain it, so also no human being has control over the day of his death. Just as no one is discharged during war, so wickedness will not release those who practice it.” Ecclesiastes 8:8 (ISV)

source: www.pixabay.com

And so you walk through places you once trod; you outline the traces of your palms that once held those hands. And each time you feel like they are still there, with no distance between the palms. You look around you and nothing seems to make sense anymore. Nothing makes you want to live; but you do. You wake up every damn morning and say “I will do this. If not for me, for them”. And when it gets to you in that washroom, that office space, that bus seat, that train seat, as you walk through a path, as you sit alone in that hall, as you sleep under that bridge; with countless people walking right past you and no one seems to feel your pain or even see it. When you feel those tears well up in your eyes and say “oh boy, here comes the water falls”. When you feel that stinging pain as your heart breaks one more time, and it feels like someone is trying to stab your heart, leaving you there to bleed, pain oozing out in form of a lacrimal fluid composed of water, mucin, lipids, lysozyme, lactoferrin, lipocalin, lacritin, immunoglobulins,  glucose, urea, sodium, and potassium (commonly known as tears). And you look up to the skies, you feel like cursing God for taking them away and causing this pain that is has become a shawl that you dress in daily, hugging it in a bid to get answers to the many questions you have. Amid sobs and whimpers you utter words that you have wanted to utter all this time. You wish for a session with the grim reaper just to ask them “what exactly is your problem?” 

“But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, "DEATH IS SWALLOWED UP in victory."O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?" 1 Corinthians 15: 54-55(ISV)

So you go to an open field, at the top of your lungs you ask “DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR STING?” And them, just then, you ask God to take the pain away, to make it stop hurting. And you rise, you dust yourself and take a walk outside and say to yourself; “I will not let this stop me. I will make them proud. I will live”

For you know too well what Isaiah 57:1-2 (NIV) says:

The Blessed Death of the Righteous
 The righteous man perishes, and no man takes it to heart; And devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from evil, He enters into peace; They rest in their beds, Each one who walked in his upright way.

And then you know that it is well. It may take long to get to that point, it might take ages, maybe years; but you do get there. For they are forever in your heart. 

source: www.pixabay.com

'To live in the hearts of others is never to die. ' - Thomas Campbell

This post is in memory of all the friends and family we have lost over the year (this year starting on a very sad note of losing several friends). This is to them that left before us. Fare thee well. Fare thee well. Till we meet again. May their souls rest in eternal peace. Amen

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Twitter: @deekareithi