What is Life Without Death?

The world is awash with grief over the deaths of a young family man and his daughter. Kobe Bryant was much loved in life and even more so in death and the daughter? Oh! So sad. Merely a budding flower and now gone forever, snatched from her family, from the game she loved, from her friends, from the world. Death provokes us to think, to evaluate, to reflect and then to mourn. We mourn not only the departed when we hear of their deaths but ourselves as well because this is a price we must all pay. This is a destiny we must all fulfill.

 From the day we are born, we begin our journeys to our various deaths. It’s waiting. Death is always waiting. Death is never satisfied. No matter how many die today, “Death” won’t give up claiming more lives. “Death” won’t spare you because you are wealthy or because you are not. It won’t spare you because it took some others from your family only recently. The beautiful, the kind-hearted, the famous, the righteous, the much loved, the young, the old, all die. Everyone is a candidate of “death”. We talk about it all the time and read about it every now and then. We shiver, we dread it, we wish we could hide from it but is it really totally bad?

 Were there to be no death, would we then be happy? If we could live forever, would all pain disappear? Could death be the only reason for our struggles in life? Had we the assurance of all the time in the world, would we compete for anything? Would there be a need to go to school at a certain age,graduate within a certain age range, seek employment , get married, start a family and on and on? With all the time in the world, would we grow old or stay ever young? With everyone living forever would there be births anymore? Could the world accommodate every one who had ever been born and still have space for some new ones? Will children grow up to adulthood and not grow older? Would children catch up with parents in age and then they all became mates? How about grandparents? Would you like to have all the time in the world? Would it make you feel forgotten like you have been left behind in the world? If you could live forever would you push yourself to be the best version of you that there could be today? I ask all these because where I come from there is a saying that the world is a marketplace where everyone comes to trade and as soon as one sells all their wares, they pack up and go. So we are constantly competing against time to do all we have to before death comes for us. What is out there? How is it? When does it start? Kobe Bryant and his daughter left together, did they arrive over there together? At the same time, the same place? Can they look back? What would they tell us if they could? There are many questions and many answers but who has them all?

 I planned to make my first post about something entirely different but the crash of an helicopter last night and the death of a young girl who was so promising and her father whom many have described as a true family man changed it all. As you read this, think and find your own answers to these questions. The race against time, the thought that we do not have all the time in the world, makes us want to do better I believe and if that were true then death is not entirely bad. It may come unexpectedly yet, each time, it reminds us that we are steadily getting to the end of our journey. The same end for all of us. As a family man or family woman, what becomes of your family when your journey ends and you are called up? Have you made a Will yet? Is there anything you can do now to make that transition a bit easier for your loved ones? While we are all saying “goodnight” to Kobe, Gianna and the seven others who lost their lives last night, ponder on these questions.