My Ynaija post! Too young for a legacy?

I received news that my younger sister’s friend at school and indeed our family friend died last week from gun shots by robbers. She had been an eighteen year old student of Covenant University and had left school for Lagos when this unfortunate incident happened. My younger sister has not stopped crying for days now. I am still very distraught. Late last year I also lost a very good friend of mine to cancer of the stomach while he was away for his Masters degree in the UK. I attended the funeral with eye whites flecked with red; my heart breaking all over again when I remembered his smile.

Eight years ago, I lost three young friends of mine to an accident, malaria, and sickle cell respectively. They were just mid way through their university degrees and had high hopes and dreams.

Death as we know is inevitable. It occurs as certainly as birth does. Anyone that is born must surely die, and this has been going on since the world began, but it doesn’t mean we have gotten used to it. I lost my mum at forty five and I still think she was too young to die. I still haven’t quite gotten over it and may never; she really was an amazing woman.

I wrote a piece a few months ago, titled Of Legacies and Remembrances to try and make humorous sense of the pain of losing someone dear from the point of view of the one who has passed. And in my piece, I created a fantasy where the person was worried about the legacy they left behind and constantly looked for affirmations that they had been on the right path.

I thought of this most of the day before deciding to write this piece; battling with the unintended morbidity this may portray. However we must talk about it because it is not only old people who die. Young people do too, and we cannot afford to wait till we are old to begin to think of a legacy, taking for granted that we will live till our nineties.

What is a legacy? Dictionaries tell of things like a gift; something to be remembered for; a bequest; and not always of money. Your legacy speaks of your essence, which will be unmistakably unique to you and clearly apparent on your passing, whatever the age.

To be conscious of death is to be conscious of life. People who are committed to leaving something behind are more likely to live better lives. Jesus who was constantly aware of his mission; to die for mankind, lived his short life with his eyes on the goal and did everything to attain that goal.

It’s a new year, and just like we have short term, mid-term and long term goals, I believe a good goal for us which will be called an all-term goal should be to die well.

“Ah, am I not too young to be interested in that?” you may ask? You’re not at all! I really hope all the friends I lost in their twenties thought of this.

To die well is to live well. Living well involves a clear eyed approach to the issues in your life, refusing to be hood winked by the enemy of our souls; the devil and taking responsibility for all our actions.  It is fool hardy at this point to be unaware of what is good and what is evil. Search God’s word for his standards for all of life’s issues and enlist the Spirit’s help in conforming.

Realizing also that God has given us talents; graces, passions, skills and abilities and would be very upset if we bury them (see Matthew 25:14-30). If you don’t do something about that writing, singing, web developing, football or preaching  now that you’ve got your youth, and then you go to meet the Lord with talents still intact, do not expect the Lord to smile and be happy. Harsh words like ‘Lazy and lying servant’ may apply to you. We should do our best to avoid that.

A lot of grief is associated with death, particularly with the death of a young person. Families and friends mourn the loss greatly because they think the person did not get a chance to “live life”, to get married, have children, buy houses and so on. The pain and sadness is understandable. However, at the end of the day, we all would do well to live like every single day is our last; to leave behind an ever present legacy for the loved ones we leave behind.

Photo credit: www.ynaija.com

OF LEGACIES AND REMEMBRANCES

You have just closed your eyes in sleep -- a different kind of sleep, and then you hear someone calling your name and you find yourself slowly slipping to the other side. But you are still hearing your loved ones, raising their voices to a feverish pitch. They are saying something that sounds like an unbroken string of mono syllabic words ; you recognize it as the tongues of angels, the tongues of spirits. This mysterious language is broken up by fierce, passionate singing and deafening clapping: “He has promised he will never fail”; the song goes....but you are going and they still continue praying and singing , singing and praying, voices hoarse, tears streaming down.
But then you go. It is final. You have gone.

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The next day people begin writing on your wall on facebook. Hopefully your privacy status enables them leave a line or two. Some look for old pictures of you and put up on their own facebook wall and they say stuff about you. Just stuff.
Then hurriedly , your family amidst their mind numbing grief go about gathering your photos to send to the printer. For your funeral program. You didn’t have the time to pick out your photos, of course, so they pick out the nicest – in their own opinion. Someone thinks that the one where you wore your youth corper khaki looks nice, so they put it there.

People gather around and talk about you. They remember all sorts of things.

Someone remembers your kiss. She says you plundered her mouth. Someone says they owed you five thousand naira and you forgot to ask for it, up until you died. They say it with a relieved sigh. Yet another says that all you cooked in school was beans.That you put dried fish in it, that they can still taste it in their mouth although school was four years ago.They say the most inane things. At least they say something. What if nothing was said?

But some others try to remember more profound things. Some say you had a fine mind, that you were intelligent , that you were ingenuous. It’s all kind of abstract , if you think of it, but you see they have to write on facebook. So they marshall their thoughts, and try to shrink their perceptions into words. It proves very difficult and so they simply stop trying .

“What are they really thinking?”, you ask. Are they writing what they are thinking, or thinking what they are writing? Nobody is answering you—of course. All they can do is write on facebook or in a condolence register.
 
You give up wondering. You simply cannot know their mind. At least not from where you are. Especially not from where you are. So you try another angle. You say to yourself, “ I know what I did, who I was and so I’ll tell it to myself.”
If you had been a one year old for example, you might say, “ I never forgot to smile when my mother left for work in the mornings. I’m sure that helped in brightening her day. And yes, I did remember to cry in moderation when she returned.Because after such a hard day ,I didn’t want her nerves frazzled.”
If you were a thirteen year old SS1 student, you would think “Well , I tried to help my friends understand lessons better, I didn’t go putting my hands up no girls skirt , I did try to give some of my milk to that poor guy whose parents couldn’t afford anything , and I think I was a good son to my parents.” I think.
If you were a twenty eight year old guy, you think “Well, I was good to the ladies,treated them with respect and dignity, especially my fiancee, I was honest at work, didn’t try to take any money that wasn’t actually mine.I worked hard to help my mum and dad raise my siblings, and I never forgot to call home even when I was far. I tried to love God. It was hard but I tried.
 
A part of you smirks, but you insist, I tried.

Then you say, “I touched the lives of my friends, I shared everything I had with them , I was loving and cheerful and gracious and forgiving.

If you were a twenty eight year old lady, you say “Ah I refused to degrade my body , or let anyone lay a claim on it because of money, and I didn’t judge my friends.I stayed away from those mind defilers -- porn, vile music and trashy literature.

If you were a forty-five year old woman, you would think “I sent my children to the best schools, was faithful to my husband, was dedicated at church, and yes , was good to my staff. 

Or if you were a seventy year old man, which you weren't but if you were, you might say , "I was honourable, left an inheritance for my children's children, gave generously to the poor.

All this is supposed to make you feel better, but ironically, it doesn’t.
 
Then you exhaust yourself. Enough of the self adulation!
It’s simply not working. You try another angle. You say," Maybe I’ll just forget about trying to convince myself of my legacy or lack thereof.I’ll leave it to him to tell, but by God I hope I made him glad", all the while fighting a creeping feeling of anxiety.

“Him” is the one you are meeting very shortly, by the way .

”He will be with you in a minute. Please have a seat”, they say. The seat is pure, brilliant gold.
He comes out shortly from his inner chambers and he looks like nothing you’ve ever seen before and says, and yes he is grinning like he is happy to see you, “Well done thou good and faithful servant!"
You want to pass out in relief, but then you remember that you’ve already passed -- on!

A light-hearted fantasy for people who are grieving over the reality of the passing of a loved one, that is , a really loved one! I hope this bings some of the much needed upliftment.