It is only the fourth month of the year and I think I have attended a funeral every month this year. I know other people who have attended even more. It is like there is a roll call somewhere and people are hurriedly lefting this WhatsApp group called Earth.
Death is a painful subject, for those left obviously. I tend to think for the one gone, death is liberating. With death though, the living is often engulfed by fear. Fear for themselves, fear of the unknown. Fear of everything unproven like the concept of hell. Fear of darkness.
There is often talk of forgiveness, whatever form it takes for whoever, everyone wants to let go of things and live in harmony. Whatever that means. You will hear cliches like, “life is short”.
To be honest, I cannot stand the short-lived hippies who want world peace and to live as one for all of two weeks after a funeral. The ones who suddenly want everyone to forgive them because life is short.
Life is not short. We all have our predestined time on earth. We make it short by allowing people to do anything and letting it pass because “life is too short”. The reason we have triggers is to teach us not to touch a particular person again. Or to touch them with oven mitts. I will explain.
The sufuria is your friend. But the day you burn your fingers is the day you will always remember to use oven mitts or whatever barrier before picking it off the fire. It will get hot from time to time depending on what you use it for, but you will never again be caught off guard. You will not say to yourself, that life is short and get burnt by the sufuria over and over again, unless you are a lunatic, in which case, please carry on.
As the burn from the sufuria, so is life. You cannot get ducked over and over again and keep forgiving someone because life is short and one day they will die. True, they will die. You will also die. But they chose a way to live, you do not have to be part of it. And the few times you feel you must engage, you can put on your oven mitts.
Do not get me wrong though, death does make us look inward. It is a time to reflect. Not a time to be fearful. It does make us want to live our best lives. Though this sometimes lasts all of four weeks before we go back to default settings. We want to make sure we are making our mark. We can do all this however without being in toxic situations because we fear death or the possibility of dying alone or no one being there to bury us.
Someone once said to me that we are buried by our peers. I want to add that based on the last funeral I attended, we are buried by our community. The ones we create. The ones who accept us for who we are. The ones who do not place any conditions on us.
There is nothing to fear. Do not fear living because of death. Do not be manipulated into situations that are less than ideal for you because “life is short”.
Death is so often used to guilt-trip the living. Maybe because we fear it so much. Another person said, when you die, it takes six people to hold you up, pallbearers. What if you had those six people to hold you up when you are alive?
Some of these things we really need to take time to think through them before we say them. Because they do not make any sense. Who is holding the six people who are holding you up? It is rather selfish to think six people should make it their life's mission to hold you up so you flourish in life and then come back to hold you up again when you are dead. Unless they are on your payroll.
The most important thing in life as in death is community. Find your tribe. Live amongst them with no preset conditions. When your time comes, they will do for you what is needed.
May all those gone before us RIP and those of us left, aluta continua.
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