August the cursed month: You’re going to die sooner or later, that’s the cold reality

• We will all die. People will forget about you after a few including all your Facebook friends with their online RIP posts.
• What people will remember is your contribution to society. All wealth is vanity

July will go down in our history as this year’s dark month. For long, August has been the cursed month, when the gates of tragedy open to pour out disaster on our land.

As a child, the first August tragedy I ever witnessed was the death of Mzee Jomo Kenyatta. I was child at the time, but I can recollect events around that day.

Tension was high. Most people thought there would be fracas. My uncle who resided in Uhuru Estate converted his house into a banker — and used timber to seal the windows. And so we grew up with the notion that when a famous politician dies, tension follows.

I started schooling at Khalsa Primary School in town and the thing that made some of us not fear dead bodies was our sense of adventure that took us to St Peter Claver’s church every time there was a requiem mass to see how one fits in a coffin.

As I grew up, I tried to understand death and why people think some people are immortal. Philosophers and non-philosophers stand on a level of equality with respect to death according to Jeff Mason.

 He argues that we are all equal in thinking about death, and we all begin and end our thinking about it from a position of ignorance.

When one passes on, you will hear some people blaming God, asking Him why it had to happen to a relative or a good person. I can accept the theory if it’s a sudden death without any factors like accident or self-inflicted death.

 But as one Fr Thomas Burke used to say, when one’s time comes, no matter what you do, it will come to pass. Blaming people or God, wailing and trying to resurrect the departed will not help.

For those who think death is real, then death is a blank wall. For those who think death is not real, then death it is a door to another life.

I learnt a lot about death when I lived in Mombasa. I remember this Muslim friend of mine who got bitten by a snake at night in his house. He lived alone. His rotting body was found days later. His people had to bury him — wrapped in his bedding.

A friend of mine called Daddy who was my official barber based in Old Town explained his understanding of life and death and which humbled me.

Daddy argued that a human being is just oxygen without which it dies and becomes useless. Funny thing is the poor and the rich all breathe the same oxygen.

 This means oxygen and death balances life, making us all equal.

So, no one is immortal. We will all die. And believe me, a few weeks after you’re buried, you will be forgotten. People will move on with their life including all your Facebook friends with their online RIP posts.

Then there are those social media users who like ‘killing’ people before their time by forwarding fake news.

Well, announcing another person’s death does not make you the high priest of society. What is important is to know you did your part on earth and when your time comes you will depart.

What people will remember is your contribution to society. All wealth is vanity.

ojiamboainea@yahoo.com

@AineaOjiambo