THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

In primary school we had an elementary science teacher who taught us to appreciate air. At the age of 8 years old she helped me understand how precious the gift of life really is. First she asked us to take a deep breath and try to be conscious of the fact that we were sucking air into our lungs, and then she asked us to hold our breath for 60 seconds and release it. That was the first time I was in awe; Oxygen and carbon dioxide… natural or artificial represents life and the absence of it represents death. That is the simplicity of life for me in its most basic form.

I have two feuding parts within my soul… one part that accepted that death is a reality; hence there is need for me to work towards heaven in order to prepare myself for death whenever it comes… and the other part of me that believes that I am too young to think of death. Sometimes the latter wins…and at other times it’s the former.

You might find it weird but the reason why I love the book of Ecclesiastes so much is because Solomon has a way of making life seem so beautiful and vain at the same time. If the things that should matter are not in your life then you are better off not living according to him. I like to think that I am young and believe that I will never die; maybe rapture will come before I die or I will live till I am 150 years old while retaining the strong healthy body type of my grandma. I do not like to think about death because the concept of it even happening to me seems unreal. Sometimes I have a reality check and I try to get new perspectives on life and sometimes I say damn it all; live your life Chima because you won’t be young forever.

I sometimes believe that life should be a continuous struggle where we aim to please God, live a fulfilled life and leave something behind in our will so that those after us can have a better start to life than we did. I believed that life is the ability to pray to God like I can see him; to feel remorse when I do the wrong thing, to cry when someone pushes my buttons, to savor the taste of exotic cuisines that make me bless God for being alive, to scream angrily at someone who pisses me off, to have fun with my friends while getting tipsy on alcohol and talking about our dreams and fears, to breathe easy knowing that someone’s got my back, to take pleasure in the good things of this world when our dreams become reality and to feel the heat pricking on my skin when the sun is having a torrid, harsh day. To breathe in the scent of an amazing perfume, to indulge in self-pity when someone disappoints us and try again when we gain belief in ourselves. This is life; to be able to feel everything that happens, to have the chance to live my dreams and be a hero in the way that I know how to. This is life; this is something that dead people do not have. It is so final when it happens that the resulting grief can kill the bereaved ones left behind.

Dead people don’t have dreams, they don’t cry, or get angry, or eat, or smell, or walk, or hope, or laugh. They don’t feel a single thing because they are dead, gone from the living, never to return.

I remember the day my little nephew was born; I wasn’t at the hospital during the birthing process but I remember rushing to the ward so quickly with joy. My hands were clammy with sweat as he was brought out; and as I held him, a new baby given the gift of life and the grace to love, I felt overwhelmed by the amazing power of God at work, I was excited at the prospect of seeing him grow and I wanted to be a part of whatever future he decided to build.

There is no greater reality check that changed my philosophies to life like the recent burial of my friend’s dad which I attended. I never really attended a burial ceremony until last month when I travelled to the south-south of Nigeria to attend the traditional burial of my friend’s dad. Now my friend is the strongest person I know. She is so strong that sometimes I just stare at her to see if I can understand how she stays so strong in the face of such despair. She stepped up after the loss of her dad and has done a wonderful job of being a single parent to the rest of her siblings. It is worthy of note that my friend is only 21 years old but life has forced her to mature in the most unusual of circumstances yet she has embraced this change with grace.

When I went over there for the burial, I could see how sad she was. How her young siblings were struggling to deal with it all, yet she made sure that there was a positive energy in the living room that night as we sat around the TV mocking the poor quality of a nollywood movie that was showing just a night before the wake keeping. The same positive spirit was in the air on the day of the wake keeping and it felt less like a burial and more like a celebration of life.

The day of the burial has to be the only time in my life where I have been surrounded by so much grief. I was really sad for my friend and I couldn’t begin to understand what she was going through in that moment as we drove to the mortuary to bring home the body of her father.

While in the vehicle, my friend mentioned that she had forgotten to bring along a bottle of Joop cologne which was a favourite of her dad. I was bemused initially and wondered what a dead person needs perfume for. It didn’t hit me till later that this was one of the last moments she was going to be sharing with her father and she needed him to go the way she remembered him; with the scent of his favourite perfume. When I went by later to pay my last respects to my friend’s dad; several thoughts went through my mind;

 This is the first time I am seeing a dead body in my life.

How could anyone be so evil as to cut up the man the way they did in such brutal manner?

The magnitude of hate that can dwell in the soul of a man

This is it I thought; he really is gone… no fairytale is going to make this man rise from that coffin. I felt glum at the thought that this man would never live to see the great things that his children will do, he won’t be able to acquire new tastes, or eat his favourite fishes, or drink alcohol with his kids, or share a laugh with them or protect and provide for his children the way he wanted to. All he could do was hope that he had made enough impact on his kids that would see them through life.

Yet, even as I watched the sorrow flash through the eyes of my friend at the death of her father, as I thought of how unfair life had suddenly become, with the grief and the pain that made her loose so much weight that she didn’t even know she was shedding, I was happy for her… for the sole reason that she is alive; as long as she draws breath she can work through it all, conquer all the despair and struggles sure to come her way. As long as she wakes up each day; they will all be okay because nothing can replace the grace to want to live.

I came back to Abuja and ever since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what life and death means. Is it worth it to be a hero; to choose to die for a cause you believe in? Is it okay to live in fear, bound by shackles of those who hold us down? Under what conditions does life become unimportant and in what situations should we strive to try to see tomorrow?

Life can be incredibly cruel; it can test us to limits that would make Job’s situation seem easy. It can take away from us everything we hold dear and thought important. It turns us into demons craving to stay above depth as despair seems to drag us down.

You try to live a healthy life, staying away from sugar, fatty foods, doing all the recommended exercises and keeping to the advice of the doctor strictly. We can make plans for retirement; buy a house in Spain where you can lazy about the rest of your life. You can have huge savings and investments prepping for the rainy day. You can make all the plans you want but one day, the cruel hands of death makes you a fool by taking you away and forcing you to give all you’ve worked for to someone else.

Make the best of life; listen to the doctor but don’t do everything he says. Drink an expensive bottle of French wine from the Bordeaux region if you can afford it; take a trip to a deserted Asian island where people still breathe in unpolluted air. LIVE, BE YOUNG, make mistakes, learn, love, worship God. Enjoy the little things that those who have no life would want to have because life is a living miracle.

My friend Femi Kinrin once told me that as much as he admires heroes, he doesn’t want to be one because most times the true heroes are those who give up their lives fearlessly to promote a cause that they staunchly believe in. The key here is DEATH.

Death is so final that it is absolutely scary. We must constantly and actively prepare for it even as we go on living to ensure that whenever it happens, we leave with a self-satisfied smirk on our faces telling death…. YOU MAY HAVE TRIED, BUT I MADE YOU MY B***H!