Face to Face with Death

THE youth was grief stricken. Six feet below his feet lay the newly buried remains of his older brother.

“Why did he have to die?” he murmured, his shoulders shaking from his sobbing. “Why does anyone have to die? Where has he gone? My brother . . . Joel, where are you?” he moaned in stifled tones.

Joel, who had just fallen short of his 28th year, was the first of eight children. His parents were simple country folk who made a living by cultivating a small piece of land. They had made great sacrifices to meet the cost of his education; but when he graduated as a medical doctor, they felt a surge of pride. They thought, too: “Now he will be able to help us with the other children. Our life won’t be so difficult anymore.”

But five months after completing his internship at the University Teaching Hospital he was dead!

The youth thought of all these things, and more. Joel had been more than a brother to him. He had been a counselor, workmate, friend. Now he was gone, and so suddenly! It happened on a Sunday. It was a swelteringly hot day. Joel told his friends at the hospital that he intended to “take a dip” in the river after lunch and invited them to come with him. They did not feel inclined to go, so he went alone.

He did not return alive. What grief his relatives and friends felt when his body was brought home later that day!

The youth’s mind struggled to grasp the reality of it all. At the “Christian” funeral the priest had said that Joel was “called to higher service.” The villagers had said that he was returning to his ancestors, to live among them. They were even preparing to hold a “second burial,” to release his spirit into the ancestral spirit world.

“But,” the young man wondered, “is my brother really alive now? Is he sharing my sadness? Is he happy? Where is he? Is his death the end of it all?”

Most people have had similar thoughts in times of grief over the death of a loved one. Think of those who have lost loved ones in tragic accidents, in wars, or due to sudden illness. Think of the mother whose child succumbs to death; of the family who loses a parent. Then think, too, of all those who die from so-called natural causes.

Do you not wonder why and how death has come to be accepted as “natural”? Do you not wonder whether death ends it all? Can death be defeated?