2013-Sep-13-1454Hrs
Dear Errol:
This is going to be rambling, reflecting my state of mind, just having one hour ago witnessed the burial of my fellow Havenite Phillip Kendall. Earlier in the day I had written something on this blog, then I sent a private note to Rodney Foster who was in Phil's year group and is also a Havenite. I found the photograph that Cliff Bertrand had sent years ago, showing him looking no more than 18.
As I was walking to the big tree, behind the stands in the Center of Excellence where the cemetery lies, and under which our brother has found his resting place, I found myself disagreeing with the lady with whom I was walking, about her assertion that death has no sting.
If there was no sting in death, why was I feeling so absolutely empty about this passing. Why should I privilege the hereafter, over life above ground, where people make their mark as fathers, teachers, mothers, lawyers, priests, whatever.
If the real action in life comes after death, what then is the whole point of life here on earth??
My own view is that it is possible that death is such a fearsome thing, that it is better to employ reverse psychology where it is concerned. Pretend it is no big deal to die. Where is thy sting? After death is supposed to come this phase of eternal life, where my soul assumes primacy, my soul which will live forever.
You know the song that Cuffie and the warden taught us "Death Oh, Death oh mi lawd, when ah mi body lay down in the grave then ah me soul goin jump for joy".
Why are we so dismissive of life itself, this wonderful gift that we get to be born into this world. Why cant we accept that we each have finite time on this stage, to walk onto at birth and to say our lines until the curtain draws, and we become dust. Is it that we want to go on forever, and this myth has to become our creed?
I think we will treasure life more, if we privilege it as the gift we have gotten, rather than its absence. It is while we are on earth that we should make our contributions. Here and now.
There is for me a sting in death. I saw them lower a box and within it was our brother Phillip Kendall, and I am happy that I got to see him drop his lyrics, do his thing, on this side of earth. If he is able to rise up from where he lies in a form as the faithful say, I think he would be deserving, but for me, what I can say, is that while in this world, he used his given talents.
I am not sure what these words make me, perhaps some kind of non-believer, but before the white man kidnapped my ancestors, they had their own ways of dealing with death, and it was to band dey belly and bawl. Happy land of Canaan is something they were taught out here.
I find death to be undesirable, and to possess a painful sting. I still miss my mother. I think that just in case there is nothing after, except bones, and finally dust, we should all redouble our efforts, to maximise the talents we got at birth, trying to make the earth above ground a better place, while we are here.
I was happy that I knew Phillip Kendall, and that I was there for a period in his life, when I saw him perform to the fullest of his talents, in days long before the ravages of chronic disease took hold of him. I was sad, not happy, to represent Haven, as they let him down, in what looked to me to be a quite final fearsome process.
I don't think we should taunt death by asking it where is it sting. Let sleeping dogs lie
We have to decide if a roll is going to be called up yonder, or if before that roll call, us humans would find earth to be increasingly uninhabitable, as the sun takes its toll, and earth could not longer support life.
Scratchy
Fair Haven Forever
67-69.
Theodore Lewis 69
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