So far so good we still living today
But we don’t know what tomorrow brings

Lucky Dube, Crazy World, 1991

As I write this article, it’s 28th May 2023. While the rest of the world is going about its business as usual, this is not an ordinary day south of the Sahara.

Exactly four years ago, on this day, something profound happened. Of course, it didn’t make it to global headlines. No. It wasn’t covered on CNN or BBC. Not even local media picked it.

It may have seemed an ordinary occurrence not worth any attention beyond its location in a nondescript village in Uasin Gishu County, in Kenya’s Rift Valley.

Let me cut you to the chase!

On that day, my father, Mr. Charles Gimode, breathed his last. It was the most profound occurrence in my life. It turned my world upside down.

Sometimes I feel people often think that healing after losing a loved one is as easy as it seems. I can guarantee you it isn’t. Four years later, I still harbour so many unanswered questions about the events of that fateful Tuesday morning.

Healing after any death, just like any other loss in life, is a process. It is not an end in itself but a a means to a greater end. It is always the beginning of an uncertain journey into an uncertain future.

You see, death is final. There’s no other justification beyond it. Death is an end in itself. It is its finality that makes it a conundrum of sorts.

My father’s death was so abrupt that it was simply impossible to keep up with the pace at which events were moving. 

Grief expert Mary-Frances O’Connor has combined her expertise in neuroscience and psychology to provide trailblazing insights on what happens in our brains when we grieve. Her book, The Grieving Brain, offers exceptional perspectives.

Combining neuroimaging and real-life stories, she gives a front-row seat on grief, which she says is a form of learning that helps us know how to be in the world without someone we love.

“The background is running all the time for people who are grieving, thinking about new habits and how they interact now,” she notes in an interview in 2021 published by the US National Public Radio.

She distinguishes grief and grieving, with the former being an emotional state which is our natural reaction to loss, while the latter has a time aspect and happens as we get used to the fact that our loved one is gone and we are moving on without them.

According to the American Psychological Association, every person reacts differently to death and employs unique coping mechanisms for grief.

Research shows that while most people can recover from loss over time; it may take longer for others. At the same time, your relationship with the deceased person may affect how you grieve. Some people may have mental problems in the process and may need to see a psychologist for help.

Every year, as we mark my father’s death anniversary, I keep reflecting on many things around his death and the meaning of life.

So today, I reflect upon some lessons I have learnt from him and his death, which I feel continue to shape how life unfolds. On these pages, I would like to share these lessons with anyone struggling to get elusive answers about losing a loved one.

Death as the final arbiter on life’s most complex questions

When my father died, it was sudden. The doctor said he had died of high blood pressure. As his children, we didn’t know he had this condition. As a policeman, he had always been as fit as a fiddle.

Even in his retirement, he was still quite active in community initiatives, particularly in education, where he sat on boards of various schools in our locality. In agriculture, he rallied the community to form a cooperative society to shore up their milk business.

He was a mobilizer par excellence. A man of the people. When he died, we didn’t know what to do. We hadn’t witnessed death in our immediate family in a long time. We were lost for words, what to do, or how to behave.

Every day I keep asking myself, if he had lived longer, what would have been different? How would he look at 80, 90 or even 100? His death, for instance, plunged my mother into the huge responsibility of the head of the family. It has not been easy for her in his absence.

Even though she has managed this sudden responsibility with grace, it is clear that the transition has not been easy.

I have ruminated over the question of death and its inevitability. I have reached the conclusion that we must submit to it at one point or another.

We must keep asking ourselves, how would we like to be remembered when death finally beckons? How can we live meaningful lives?

I remember how while attending an induction workshop for a new job I had gotten a decade a go, one of the facilitators told each one of us to note down what they would like to be the concluding sentence in our eulogies.

While that appeared so odd a request then, with hindsight I saw the sense in it. He was asking us to see ourselves beyond us!

Seeking meaning in life

Every day, we wake up seeking a purpose in life. This purpose gives meaning to our lives and is available in many forms.

Some get it from their jobs or vocations. Others in the pleasures of life. Others get into religion. Yet the strange ones get it from inflicting pain on others and humiliating them, frustrating them.

Growing up, I witnessed my father’s generosity, even to strangers. He never fell short of a good turn if he could do it. That, to me, seemed his purpose in life. To impact other people.

One of his former colleagues, whom I later met, hilariously told me how my father had saved him from being subjected to disciplinary cases for literally ‘sleeping’ on the job. This incident happened in the 80s at a police station in North Eastern Kenya. At the time, the Provincial Police Officer (now known as Regional Police Commander) had visited the station unannounced at night and found the officer, who was standing guard for the night, napping at his station.

The officer was fingered for disciplinary action. When the officer explained his impending predicament to my father, he only advised him to insist that he is provided with proof that he was indeed sleeping on his job! Well, the sanction did not go anywhere.

Given the shortness of life, I have chosen to live purposefully daily. I am determined to continually create impact in all my dealings and live my life to the fullest. This is so because we are all created to fulfill a particular purpose in life. This purpose is not defined, but we each figure it out as we go along the pathways of life.

As we chase our dreams, we inadvertently forget our life mission. Even though we are mere sojourners, we must leave imprints that will outlive us.

Everything you do cements your legacy upon the world. That’s how people will remember you long after you are gone.

Out of many, act as if you are alone

The greatest lesson my father taught me was responsibility, not just to myself, but to others, and specifically towards my parents.

On children’s obligation towards parents, he advised me, ‘‘Even if you are born many in a family, always behave as if you are born alone.” This has assisted me in managing my expectations and how I discharge my obligations as a child more responsibly.

His philosophy was that how children related to their parents was never communal. It was never group work. It was personal.

In a family, like any society, people are socialized differently and turn out differently. Even though parents have done their best to teach good morals and values to children, they can never see through the whole picture of how they will turn out in adulthood.

This is important as it is possible to get a lot of conflicts and disagreements in families based on sibling rivalries arising purely on how they each vie for their parent’s attention. Tags of the ‘most favoured’ child or family ‘black sheep’ have torn families apart, primarily based on assumptions that may or may not be accurate.

According to Jessica Griffin, an associate professor of psychiatry and paediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the US, not every parent has a favourite child, but many do.

 “Data suggests that mothers, in particular, show favouritism to children who have similar values to them and that engage more with family, over qualities such as being highly ambitious or career driven,” she is quoted in an article on the BBC.

With my mother around, my sole duty has been to ensure she’s always comfortable, no matter what it takes. Children need to support their parents in old age as a moral imperative. While times have changed, this principle hasn’t, particularly within the context.

I have kept this lesson with me to date.

After death, what next?

The most important question that often crosses my mind is, for everyone else, what next after death? Humans will continue grappling for this elusive answer as long as this time-tested question remains a mystery. And that’s where religion comes in.

Almost all the world’s major religions have sought to provide human beings with an answer to what happens after one dies. This assurance has fired up the imaginations of people across the world and has been at the cornerstone of all doctrines of every conceivable religion and denomination.

In most religions, the afterlife, what awaits one after one dies, has been dramatically animated.

For Christians, the hope that we shall rise again on the day of judgement and that the righteous will have everlasting life provides great comfort of what awaits beyond this world.  Jesus revealed this in John 11:25-25 when he was called to the home of his friend Lazarus, who had just died and whom Jesus later raised from the dead.

Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die, and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?”

The fact is not any different in Islam. The Holy Quran, Surat Al-Jathiyah 45:26, says: Tell them, (O Prophet): “It is Allah Who gives you life and then causes you to die, and He it is Who will then bring all of you together on the Day of Resurrection, a Day regarding which there can be no doubt. Yet most people do not know.’’

Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest religions, emphasizes the soul’s existence and the body’s resurrection at the time of the Great Renewal that will come one day. The soul is immortal and will be judged immediately after the body’s death.

For Hindus, in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna teaches that one can kill only the body; the soul is immortal. At death, the soul is reborn in another body, or, for those who have fully grasped the true teachings, it achieves release (moksha) or extinction (nirvana)—that is, freedom from the wheel of rebirth.

It is the same in many African traditions, with a strong belief in life after death. When a person dies, they transcend into another realm beyond the physical. As such, death is not the end but the beginning or, in some cases, the continuation of life. That is why one becomes an ancestor after death.

Whatever you find to do, do it to the best of your ability

When my father joined the police force (now police service) in 1980 as a constable, he was a young man with ambition, ready to serve his country with zeal and enthusiasm.

Over the years, he rose to the position of Chief Inspector of Police at his retirement. It was by no means a small feat.

I have read through his work documents to reconstruct his work ethic. One thing is clear. As a long-time instructor at the then Kenya Police Training College, Kiganjo (now the National Police College Main Campus Kiganjo), he was dedicated to his work. He was exceptionally gifted and gained favour with his superiors.  His career progression was on merit, at least based on the citations in his documents.

But his job was not without its fair share of challenges. While he rarely discussed any work related issues with us, he occasionally mentioned them in passing.

As his children, we may not have known the kinds of battles he fought in his career pathways. It is no wonder he never encouraged any of his children to join the police service as many parents would.

I only learned the accurate picture as I rummaged through his documents. Looking back, I am amazed at how he stoically faced those numerous professional challenges and the fact that he never displayed any sense of stress or desperation whenever he was home.

‘‘You must always take care of your job like it is yours. Give it your best as much as you can, and everything else will follow you,’’ he often told me in our occassional tête-à-tête.

The words dovetail well into the wisdom of Dr. Rick Rigsby, the American motivational speaker who says, ”Good enough isn’t good enough if it can be better, and better isn’t good enough if it can be best.”

We are  living in a crazy world

While growing up in the rural Kenya in the 90s, communal bonds were tight. Everyone cared for the other. A person’s problem was everyone’s problem.

Now, that has changed. With growing urbanization and an increasing tendency for people to be individualistic, they say it is each to their own.

If you have people you can count on, you are lucky. If others can count on you, then you are a gem. Most surprisingly, people don’t fancy anything that promotes the commonality of thoughts or pulls efforts together. Such efforts may be sneered at under the veil of ‘non-inteference’ in people’s lives.

I have indicated before that after his retirement, my father was quite active in the community. He was passionate about conservation, and planting trees was his forte. He was also environmentally conscious.

Through his efforts, we significantly improved the tree cover at home, a culture we have sustained.In fact, since his death, we mark his anniversary by planting trees.

It is a tradition we carry along with passion and as our small way to make the world a better place for all. It is a cause we continue to champion every year.

I learnt from him the need to avoid cynicism and do my bit to improve the world. By creating a positive impact in my immediate environment, I don’t have to blame others for what I should have done.

The principle has been my guiding light whenever I see a problem. My  first question is always, ‘‘what can I do about it?’’

I may not solve all the world’s most pressing challenges, but I can play a small role in effecting meaningful change.

I also firmly believe in education as an emancipator for the oppressed. It lifts people from poverty, backwardness and a feeling of inferiority. It is an equalizer.

PS: I recently met a stranger who inspired me on the need to keep trying in life and never fearing failure.

”Don’t spend all your life keeping your head down in the fear that it will be chopped off if you raise it up. Raise it anyway, the enemy may even flee on seeing you, and you become a victor,” he said.

Thank you Mohammed Bakari for the wisdom.

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