That Friday when death came to all our doors...and we all cried

And someone close to my family has died. I heard the news, late today, and I cried for a minute. Then I stopped. I was too angry to cry...

Angry at death for giving no warning. Angry that death doesn't care about any of our plans. Angry at death because for the most part, we never get to say goodbye.

The last time we spoke, cheeks were still rosy, eyes were wide open with expectations and hope was abound. Perfection wasn't abound, but it was pretty close. Now death came and laughed and there is just a feeling of gloom that has sucked all the air out of my lungs.

I had a planned post, but death impacts us in such a way that all our earthly plans just go awry. I couldn't face the family. I don't have the words.

Then I turned the radio on and heard about the Paris Attacks................... and when you know that numbers don't lie and you are looking at a figure of 153 - dead - my heart just feels heavy and my body weighed down and my spirit broken for a world  perpetually mourning.

Death in the midst of life feels like a worm in your reddest, juiciest apple. When you step into the store and make your way to the fruit aisle, and see the myriad to choose from, then your eyes take you to that perfect apple, blemish free and shiny. You allow yourself to imagine how sweet that apple will be. You take it home, you wash it, and you are momentarily in euphoria. Then you bite. There is the worm- you spit it out, the apple falls. You feel disappointed, the next apple you pick will not be trusted, for a while, you will probably cut it with a knife. Worms in apples - no good.

Death- the only certainty of life. When people close to you die, you think of your own mortality; it's naturally normal. It makes me repeat what Jamaicans often say when people die "What is man ?"

Ecclesiastes 12:7 " then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return to God who gave it."

I just feel sad. We all want to go to heaven but no one wants to die. I don't want worms in my fruits, I don't want deaths in my midst.

But...I know better. I know all the things you are supposed to think and say.

"Death, where is thy sting? Grave, where is thy victory?" But when people die - it just leaves a void. It just leaves an emptiness that even words from the Bible seem hard to swallow; like a wormy apple.

Living without hope, a hope for a life free from people that blow up market places, planes, buildings or shoot people for their own twisted reasons, seems so much worse. So I cling to a God that hasn't lied yet! He says that he has gone to prepare a place for All of us; and he's coming back he said; coming back for us.

We must live ready! 

I can't write anything else...I've got nothing!