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But we must grieve according to how death strikes.
They say grief is personal and people grieve differently. I agree totally. But grief also takes its form and presence from nature of death.
In my own experience which I have seen play out in other people’s, grief when you lose someone to an illness is different from when death comes in a sudden, unexpected, tragic and gruesome manner.
When your loved one is very sick, they die slowly before your eyes and in most cases, you begin to grieve even before they eventually breathe their last. Grief in such situations creep in on you slowly and steadily. It’s not the same when you lose someone to an accident or a plane crash or a collapsed building. The idea that a healthy person who you bade farewell with a list of things to do together suddenly disappears hits like a thunderbolt, hence the grief would be different.
Commiserations and mourning are, and should also be different.
Circumstances, not personal whims, dictate how we grief.
When a loved one is sick, you do your best to help them recover. You do everything possible. But if they die, there is a scintilla of consolation that you did what you could and the outcome was not in your control. It does not minimise your pain but it helps you cope better because guilt makes grieving more difficult. For me, at such times, I dust myself up and face life because what’s left to do? Quite like King David did in 2 Samuel 12.
The son he had with Bathsheba was sick as punishment for what he had done. God already sent Nathan the Prophet to tell David the child would die. The King fasted and spent the nights lying on the ground begging God to restore the child to health. He would not eat, nor bathe, nor talk to anyone. It was so bad the elders of his court had to be around him so he would not hurt himself.
On the 7th day, the child died and the elders feared to tell King David because of his desolation when the little one was ill. “If the King was that devastated when the boy was ill, how would he cope with news of his death?” they thought to themselves.
But as soon as the King got the update, he got up, refreshed and wore his kingly apparels. Because what’s the point? He fasted and prayed and wept so that God would have mercy and restore the Prince to health but since that didn’t happen, life should go on.
Indeed!
Life ought to and always goes on when there’s nothing left to hold on to on a particular matter.
Let’s flip the coin and see what’s on the other side.
Same King David. Another lost son. This time, Prince Absalom. The one who rebelled against his father and led a mutiny to take the Throne from his King daddy. Even though Absalom had deceived many elders and people to go with him against David, the King had his own loyal people who fought for him. They defeated Absalom and had him killed in a gruesome murder. In 2 Samuel 18, David heard of his son’s death (without details of how he died) and he wept so badly to the point he wished he died instead. The Bible records that he grieved for Absalom after his death so badly that he withdrew to another city to mourn. I am sure David would rather his rebellious son was captured and brought to him rather than killed. Must be why he was so distraught, he mourned for days until Joab (who had killed Absalom) roused him from “the extravagance of his grief” reminding him to fulfill his required duty as king.
If the Wigwes had died from a protracted illness, perhaps, PERHAPS, the argument of “life goes on” in relation to the extravagance shown by his church’s leadership in recent celebration could have made some sense. But they didn’t. They were brought down by a catastrophic gravity and the gravity of the crash and attendant losses should have weighed so heavily on the hearts of his church that even if a billion had been expended on vendors and services, that birthday celebration could have been postponed indefinitely or scrapped altogether.
It is true that life goes on. But pressing the ‘pause’ on life doesn’t mean it won’t go on. It definitely will. Just show empathy and sensitivity to those in acute pain. That’s what the Church owes. As Christians, one of the duties of the Church is to bury the dead. Another is to comfort the afflicted. You cannot comfort by paying a condolence visit one minute while being serenaded by Flavor the very next. The optics do not tell the story of sharing in the sorrow of the family of the departed.
May God help His church to remember to be the Light of the World and not be in constant competition with others in doing the wrong things. Today, Christians are asking why the Pastor’s wife cannot enjoy her life when Access Holdings already announced an interim CEO. So scandalous a comparison, it is a complete travesty
