Death Isn’t A Platform For Eulogies …

Dr jarlat Uche opara

That is what we have turned it into. No ! Death isn’t that platform everyone waits to say some nice things in choreographed words, in an amazing manner, twist events and moments to sound so salutary, painting the deceased with the finest brush and paint on a canvas none would have dared placed them when breath has not left them.

Death! Not a platform to squeeze out empathy and sympathy one was too stingy to release, when they come, begging, crying and truckling for help. No! They are lazy! No! They should go look for something to do! No! They have been helped a thousand times. But when the breath ceases, the body cold, eyes closed and the journey to the grave becomes obvious, suddenly that withheld empathy, that stingy managed benevolence becomes one the bereaved would enjoy, most times the bereaved that never cared a hoot while the deceased lived

Death isn’t a platform to recount in a most flowery manner the life and times of the deceased, which nonbody cared to whisper to them while they were alive. Falling now on deaf ears, on closed eyes and on cold body, relishing none, for such is at best water on the back of the duck.

Death at worse should be a platform to reflect in sober mood the things one denied them, the opportunities to make their lives better one treated with levity, the moments they were dismissed and refused to pick their calls because one thought they were importunating.

Such is the moment to say sorry to them ,though too late, at least to be at peace with ones conscience.

Give the living before the pass on the best part of you. Your best generosity, your amazing smiles, your best attitude and compassion. So that when they pass one , one wouldn’t have any course to regret, rather with a clear conscience one would pray for their peaceful repose.

As commendable as it is to create platforms to raise funds for burial and help the bereaved, it is equally good to create such platforms to aid the living before the weight of life challenges overwhelm them, crushing them and forcing them to their graves too early..

Our sweet and empathetic words to the death. Our eulogies and platitudes to them that have gone beyond the shores of the living are but mere echoes, remedying nothing, exciting the wrong people why those their hearts would have genuinely savoured it were starved of them.

People are passing through a lot..Under their breath the endure a lot. The few that had the courage to speak up, oftentimes have their hopes and expectations dashed.

Celebrate people genuinely while alive. Validate them without flattery. Give them words of affirmation using their good sides. There is nobody that doesn’t have sparky sides,no matter how insignificant. It could be their unique ways of smiling, walking, talking etc. Validate them and make them feel special. Don’t wait until they are dead before your well, ocean and sea of praises and adulation are thrown open.

Keep to yourself those good memories of one , you had no courage to share with them while alive, making them into soul searching and emotion ladden tributes when they are gone means nothing to me.

A lot of people are really living on delicate and threadbare strings, a simple smile of validation, to someone can mean a lot, more than Gold and Diamond. Don’t keep those smiles, those nice words of commendation waiting for when their curtain falls to speak about them so glowingly in tributes.

Be your brothers’ keeper. Death isn’t a platform for eulogies, it is rather one of soberness,realising how futile and transient life is.

Be your brothers’ keeper while they breathe. Make no carnival of their funeral when in their life time, nothing of carnival was seen around them.

The culture of celebrating one while alive, is waning, making death celebration an exciting scene,full of pomp and pageantry, with steeze and glamour that were too distance a feeling for the deceased in their life.

What happened to that call? That checking up on close ones? That how are you doing today? That smiles and chuckle at their sight? Everything isn’t about money. Show some love, look out for them and let them know that they worth a million even in their challenging moment. The warmth enjoyed from your touch and hug, the spark of being loved that radiates on their eyes are far better than the tears shed at their funeral

Jarlathuche@gmail.com