Death is a fact of life. Everyone of us will die sometime. We don't know when. We don't know how. We don't know where. It is out there in front of us though, a constant that we can not make go away.
Sometimes it is a quick, sudden unexpected death. A slip of the steering will or a foot slipping off of a brake and suddenly Death visits. A person could simply be walking down the street when a car drives buy with a gun hanging out of the window and discharges. Death makes another visit.
Death can be a long and drawn out affair. Disease attacks a body and slowly eats away until there is nothing left for the body to continue to function. It is painful to watch a person exit life this way and in the end, when we have had time to get our thoughts together, we realize that death visiting was a mercy visit. It doesn't make it any easier to deal with, but at least we can look back and talk ourselves into believing that at least Death took the pain away from body that is left.
There are times when death visits suddenly and while one moment a person is sitting reading a paper, the next second, death has visited and shut the body down. We talk ourselves into thinking at least death took them quickly without any pain although we don't really know if pain was present or not.
Then there are times when a person is so tortured inside, maybe body wise or sometimes mind wise, that a person invites death to visit them and do what needs to be done to get the visit they feel they need so badly.
I have seen and felt the pain left behind by all of these scenarios of a visit by death. None of them are pleasant. All of them are difficult to understand at the time and for many years after the event. Nothing can be said to ease the shock and sadness that death leaves with the ones that he did not take.
I came to a time myself when I was asking death to visit me. I still sometimes wonder when death will visit me and take me. I know that it is not easy to understand, and even I have a difficult time understanding why my thoughts take me there.
I watched three of my Uncles and two Aunts go through a long process of facing death and trying to put off the inevitable visit that death would make.
Friends of mine have had loved ones visited by death suddenly, drawn out, and asking for a visit to themselves. I can not comfort my friends. I do not have the insight or the wisdom to bring words of encouragement to those whose loved ones have been visited by death. I so wish I did possess that knowledge though.
I often wonder why and how death will visit me. I have came to the brink of asking for a visit from death but was saved from making that invitation by special people. Seldom do we have a choice in whether death will visit us or not. Death makes a visit without anyone wanting a visit. These are the visits that are difficult to understand.
About the best way to make sense of visits from death is by holding onto faith. Faith that God will take care of those who have been visited by death. Faith that God will take care of us when death makes a visit to us as individuals. Faith that God will calm you and allow you to go ahead with life after death has visited a loved one without forgetting our loved ones or why they were loved ones.
Death need not be the end but the beginning of another part of existence. Faith is the only weapon we have against death. May all of us be able to hold onto that weapon of faith as we face visits of death to our loved ones as well as when death visits us.
I know that this isn't a very bright, funny, or interesting topic for a blog such as mine. I felt like I needed to say something about it though. Too often we don't think about visits from death. In reality we should always be prepared with faith for a visit from death without being obsessed by the fact. This isn't easy to do, I know.
I write this thinking about family members, friends, myself and the human race in general.
Live life as well as you can because life can be changed or taken within a second in time.
WHC
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