A couple of weeks ago I went to the University Hospital for my Histopathology practicals. As I walked into the morgue, lo and behold, two dead bodies lay at the entrance. My eyes filled with tears upon seeing the bodies.
I only stood there watching helplessly and the nervousness began to seep away as the Pathologists performed tissue perfusion. It was a sad scene beholding this process but with steeled determination and confidence I was able to withstand, although some of my colleagues nearly collapsed. The process ended successfully and we were led through the cold room (where dead bodies are preserved). As we walked through the cold room, a wince of pain ran through my spine.
Millions of thoughts flashed my mind as I left.’ Where would these people be after here, do people still sin after seeing this?’ I wondered. These are scenes that will never cease to exist in my mind but then, ‘Would I always be reminded not to sin?’ How many times have I thought of the phrase, ‘The wages of sin is death?’ Hmmmm!
Death is painful. Born and bred in a family of health professionals, death was no news to me but you see, it isn’t the death we fear, it is the life after death.
Robert Ingersoll once said, ‘In the night of death, hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing’. The greatest tragedy, to me, is not death but a life lived without allowing the perfect will of God in your life. As much as we fear death, I have come to learn that we need it as much as we do life. It is in this that we learn to trust the Lord. Death! Its sentence may be welcoming to someone living in abject poverty but bitter to someone living in wealth.
Some of these deaths maybe ‘unnatural’. My prayer for everyone reading this is that, may your departure be after you have fulfilled your mission. In your misery, may the good Lord rekindle your hope and faith. Amen.
