​What Should Death Mean to Us?

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In all the responses I have gathered as to why and how death can be meaningful; ironically, the answer has been life or to live. And even when I was finally ready to surrender to the spiritual meaning of death, the first bible verse that came to my mind was John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
 
I hate that death means the renewal of life, and I wish death didn’t happen at all or that if it did, there was a calculatable or logical reasoning for it. But for now, I’ll understand and take the life it offers and inspires after its happening.

It is hard for death to have any meaning, especially when we lose someone that meant the world to us. Earlier this year, two people I know died – not as a result of the pandemic but other health reasons. One of them was my mentor since high school – Mr. CJ Njoku, and the other a friend – Natalia Harris, who is the only daughter of another mentor – Ms. Egli Colón. This is the first time that people close to me or that I genuinely cared about died.
 
When someone dies, especially in the new age of social media, we post about them and say we wish we had more time with them or that they lived longer or something like that. I don’t know how to do that well; publicly share my sadness of loss because I am a very logical person and the rational part of me sarcastically says the dead person isn’t on social media anymore. So, as an alternative, I write and just dump what I’d have said to them somewhere in my text messages. I am also one of those who don’t know how to slump and weep for so long. I may have that once in a blue moon outburst when it randomly occurs to me that person isn’t here, but that would be it. 
 
I think processing their death or grieving about it interpreted in the form of questions I couldn’t answer. These two people had so much life within them, and they lived! Even in the face of their loss, I knew I could find joy in knowing that they lived fully when they were alive regardless of their ailments. And they were good people too.
 
When they died, I started to ask myself – so what exactly am I supposed to learn from their death? I literary said God, am I supposed to be inspired to live fully or better now? And on other days, I felt guilty for being selfish in my questioning. I thought people I love died and most of what I could think was what I am supposed to learn from their passing.
 
I had a crisis of other questions like – Why do seemingly good people die young and why do the obviously wicked ones live longer? This is not to generalize that older people are in any way wicked. I also thought What’s the point of living if we are going to die anyways? It is like taking years to build a castle with Lego bricks and all of a sudden, randomly kicking it down. Why should an experience so cruel be given the privilege of meaning? And regardless of its cruelty, why should we still desire meaning in it?
 
When others try to answer this question or ward it off, they say things like God knows best. The more interesting thing is how it forces a renewal towards interpretating everything. Like if someone lives, we say it is God’s will and praise him, and if the same person dies, we either say the same thing or blame the devil for its evil. We pick and choose what God takes responsibility for in search of meaning or relief.
 
I do not have the perfect answer to what meaning death should have to us. However, before their deaths, I read When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, and amid that crisis, I was reading Viktor E. Frankl’s Man in Search of Meaning.
 
When Breath Becomes Air is a story of Paul Kalanithi, who died at the age of 36 in March 2015, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon. Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor training and treating the dying, and the next, he was a patient struggling to live. My favorite phrase by Paul Kalanithi is, “given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life.”
 
Viktor Frankl’s Man in Search of Meaning, on the other hand, shares his ordeal of being in the Nazi concentration camp. He shares how any human could find meaning or still pursue life despite the worst adversity. I can’t remember exactly how he wrote the sentence, but he said something like “because death exists, we make a better effort to live the best way we can.”
 
In an interview session this past Wednesday, with Ms. Egli Colón (the mother of Natalia Harris who passed away) by Nia Thomas as we unraveled and interpreted Unbroken - a memoir by Ms. Egli Colón and Natalia Harris, Ms. Egli said something that caught my attention. It is a quote she referred to – that if there is anything we could do for the dead at all, it would be to live. 
 
In all the responses I have gathered as to why and how death can be meaningful; ironically, the answer has been life or to live. And even when I was finally ready to surrender to the spiritual meaning of death, the first bible verse that came to my mind was John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
 
I hate that death means the renewal of life, and I wish death didn’t happen at all or that if it did, there was a calculatable or logical reasoning for it. But for now, I’ll understand and take the life it offers and inspires after its happening.
 
In the interview session with Ms. Egli, she shared how heartbroken she was about Natalia’s passing and how her relationship with God has transformed since Natalia’s death. It got me to think that especially with the experience of death, in the desperate search of meaning, even when we wrestle with God for not understanding, he still wins with us. Because He loves us so much and wouldn’t meaninglessly hurt us, he has and always wins for us.
 
I still haven’t found the words to express my grief for Natalia’s passing. However, after my mentor, Mr. C.J Njoku, died, here is all I thought of and wrote which will be included in my next chapbook – a collection of journal notes about the art of writing.
 
Caliban Jack
 
When you love the life out of someone, you start to think they are immortal. I remember all the times you told me you weren’t afraid of death because death has had too many chances on you and lost. You were a reckless perfection. I could have sworn death had nothing on you.
 
My grief for this loss feels like anger, and I am angry because I know if death was brave enough for one more fair fight, you would fight and win. You were a warrior to me, very stubborn and resilient against many blows in life. 
 
I remember, after forcefully reading Lord of the Flies under your instruction, I re-interpreted your name – C.J: Chimezie Justin to Caliban Jack. You cherished that name and annoyingly gloated about my behavioral resemblance to Debby, whom I will still argue inherited your toughness – although that’s impossible because Debby is your beloved dog.
 
You were much older, and unlike other adults, you didn’t think age made a difference in how we would be brave and communicate our honesty. You were just that older person I could be unapologetically stubborn and honest with; one, whom I could laugh, tease, and argue my lungs with. One, whom I can confess and write with.
 
I can’t imagine what writing and literature would have meant to me without Mr. C.J. in my life. You taught me the life I knew in literature and gave me the air I inhaled in writing. 
 
When I first started writing, and my validation was dependent on what people thought – you were whom I wrote to impress. I used to think, if Mr. C.J. believes this poem is good, then it must be terrific. 
 
I remember during an after-school session, preparing for the state exams, we read one lousily sexist poem by a 19th-century writer, and I jokingly said to you, I have to write my poem that mocks men and praises women too. I remember talking feminism with you when we read Chimamanda’s Purple Hibiscus for a contest. Now memories are coming back, and I want them re-lived.
 
You are the man that inspired me to write. You also motivated many efforts I have put in ensuring the success of other writers. I can open-mindedly believe in the growth of other writers because you believed in me. Now you are here forever but gone. 
 
This is for you.
04/16/2020