Death isn’t A Stranger

By Dr jalarth Uche Opara

Just as life is always around us, so is death. It isn’t a stranger, once there is life, death becomes inevitable.

A surreal it seems to all but a reality we always tend to ignore and deny. Death isn’t a stranger, not a theive that steals. It becomes all these to those who allow themselves to be carried away by the transiency of things.

We get consumed in things, craving and pursuing ephemerals, believing in the luxury of time, while time ticks by seconds towards ones grave.

Death isn’t a stranger. It has been around and many in the past have had its cold hands to deal with, much more would experience it in the future and a lot more are presently experiencing it. A reality but not everyone recognises it.

Death isn’t a stranger, the real stranger is the one who lives as though they wouldn’t die. Who feels being young is an exemption. The young dies, the old equally dies. The best time to die isn’t in old age, certainly not in young age. No time is better than when ones relationship with God is cordial. When a soul passes, our worries should be how well they lived and the prospect of beholding the blissful presence of God.

The tragedy of death isn’t in the act of dying. It is rather in the delusion of many, about the reality of it and its unscheduled nature, very unpredictable. It hits even when one is blossoming with life. Once there is life in anything, death is a possibility.

Death isn’t a stranger, it is a reality that reduces everything into nothing. Every struggle for inordinate enrichment into emptiness, every high horse mentality into foolishness, every unkindness, wickedness, greed and inappropriate behaviour into a wasteful venture.

Listen! This world is transient. It is passing away by day and the only vehicle to the next phase of life is death.

Isn’t it funny that one attends burial, sheds tears beside graves, watch coffins lowered into the earth, hear the final thud of sand and still go home thinking there is luxury of time. Time is a vapour, a passing wind, a brief flame flickering between eternity before birth and eternity after death.

We live to die and we die to live. Until we accept this reality, death would always be a stranger that brings pains and sorrow.

Live your life as if the end is now. Live intentionally, ready to board at anytime when ones flight is announced. Sadly, we know that the flight would be announced anytime but we get caught unprepared- the tragedy of men!

Jarlathuche@gmail.com