And When We Die — some thoughts
Stuck in a trotro one hot afternoon during the Christmas break, I looked out the window and realized I was staring at a cemetery. I’d seen this cemetery many times previously. My primary school bus used to pass by it every day. Once, I had pointed out one of the tombstones to a friend and he told me that if you do that, the ghost of the person would visit you at night. That night, I lay in bed terrified, with a nightmare filled sleep. The ghost didn’t come (surprise!).
Over time, I became so used to seeing the cemetery that I ceased to notice it anymore. Now I looked at the tombstones with their elaborate designs, carvings and wreaths, many of them grown old and dusty with age.
I began to wonder about the people buried there. I imagined the fat market woman who had sold garden eggs, pepper and tomatoes and who would rather let her products rot than to reduce the price for anyone. I imagined the little child who died at the age of eight, much to the grief and consternation of his parents. I imagined the old lady who had lived to a great age, seen several generations come and go yet still refused to die. All her friends and peers had gone to the silent world yet she lived on, with no one to reminisce about the old days with. The school teacher whose death had come as a shock to everyone. “Such a good man” they probably said, “the good depart too soon”. I imagined the mentally man whose origin no one knew. They simply called him “the mad man”. The food sellers in the market fed him occasionally and the little children used to follow him, laughing and singing, then running away when he turned around.
I stared at the silent tombstones under the forget-me-not trees. Only God knew who those people were and how their lives had been. I could only imagine. I began to reflect on death.
Why do we even cry when people die? Do we not cry more for ourselves than for the dead departed? Do we not cry because of their fellowship which we, not them, are going to miss? Do we not cry because of what did for us, and with us which we will miss?
After all, when the people die, there are only two places they could go. Hell, which is far more terrible than we could ever imagine or heaven, which is far more wonderful than we could ever imagine. It is not in our power to know where they go, nor do anything about it, so we weep for ourselves.
Recently, I attended a funeral and was shocked to see a rubbish dump at the cemetery. I’d never seen such a thing. But on reflection, I realized that it was fitting that a cemetery and a rubbish dump be sited at the same place. After all, is the cemetery not a glorified dumping site for human corpses? I know this sounds harsh but it is true. At the risk of sounding nihilistic, I’ve come to see that between the two, ordinary rubbish is more desirable to human “rubbish” no matter how decorated and lamented the latter is. Do people not roam rubbish dumps searching for food, tins and other items to make money from? Yet let it be heard that a person died on a certain road or in the house and people will avoid it. Or let someone catch sight of a corpse and they will flee, screaming.
I was reminded of the words of the philosopher in the book of Ecclesiastes, “vanity upon vanity; all is vanity”. Truly, all is vanity. We come to this earth, live our lives as we please and when we die, our fellow humans would rather touch a rag that has been thrown away than come close to us, in spite of the expensive clothes we’ve been buried in.
So why do we live our lives forgetting that there’s an eternity to go? Why do we wait to celebrate people only when they die? Why do we wait to forgive people only after we’ve heard that they are dead? And most importantly, we do we want to die before we call on the name of Jesus?
We have only one live, it will soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last. Let’s live our earthly lives on earth for God so that we can spend eternity with him.
(Written in 2014 in memory of Benjamin Martei Odonkor)
