The news arrived while we were at a dinner gathering of students and teachers to honour a school teacher visiting our city after more than 40 years. Our happy reminiscing was rudely interrupted by a tragic announcement. Our dear friend from school, Pastor Smokey James had just lost his 17 year young son Judah in a drowning accident.
I was angry with myself for being so slow to feel Smokey and Patricia's anguish. I suppose when confronted by an unimaginable situation our minds often go numb and fails us. For a while I continued with the evening as if I never even heard the disastrous news.
As realization of the gravity of the situation dawned on me I suddenly felt suffocated by the celebrations of my schoolmates. I had to flee from there.
It was too late to call anyone to confirm the sad news. Several messages from common friends in the morning reconfirmed what my heart already knew.
Maybe God had other duties and plans for Judah. This Judah sensed, because he wrote this poem a month before he was recalled.
If you don’t wanna live your life alone
Try Jesus who will hit you like a cyclone…..
When His light in you has shone
You won’t even have time to mourn!...….
Judah in spite of being a good swimmer and had been dragged downstream by the angry river from Islampur. After a massive hunt they discovered his lifeless body late in the morning. The phone lines were abuzz seeking information on the funeral preparations and timings.
What could I and for that matter any of us do, His will is final and all we can do is accept it? It was past 8:00 pm when the devastated family arrived in Pune and the funeral held.
I arrived at the cemetery just after the burial. As I hurried towards the gathering some people told me " You are late, you might as well go back".
Late for what? None of us could do anything for Judah, but we could share Smokey and Patricia's sorrow. I wondered how is it that we have become so preoccupied with ceremony that we are blind to truth and devoid of compassion?
Do we care not for the living, who will have to survive this great loss? It is they that need our comfort and not the corpse which lay lifeless before us.
Do we care not for the living, who will have to survive this great loss? It is they that need our comfort and not the corpse which lay lifeless before us.
My heart and mind were in turmoil. I felt a mixture of confusion, sadness, and anger.
This only increased as I stood in a rather long line of mourners and watching various people who had come.
My gaze turned to the attendees many who had come from afar who were milling around indulging in social intercourse, while a few prayed.
The majority just waited their turn and tried to comfort Smokey the only way they knew. A long face, a handshake or a hug, mutter a few words of consolation and then leave. I could not but believe that each mourner only further tormented the grievously wounded soul.
When my turn came I simply hugged Smokey. When you love someone, words become somewhat unnecessary. He began to sob and softly said in a voice filled with shock and overflowing with sadness said, "He took my son, … He took my son".
A minute which seemed an hour we spent in embrace, I felt I was able to take away some of his pain. However so terrible was the tragedy for Smokey that grief filled his heart almost instantaneously when the next person met him.
Filled with sadness for my friend and what he and the family would have to endure their whole lives I sat with Deepak another classmate. I observed that barely had many mourners turned to leave they returned to their normal lives, seemingly almost untouched by this tragedy.
Many a funeral I have attended and am always puzzled by the effortless and immediate transition from mourning to normal life. Maybe we have become mere mask wearers.
How could people be untouched by a tragedy of this magnitude, and to a person so close to us? It made me realise once again how fragile life is and the insignificance of man in the scheme of this universe and how trivial our pursuit of things.
I left after a while noting that many people appeared undisturbed. This is a quality possessed by great souls that gracefully accept God's will, and who were beyond feelings of life and death. Or is it a reflection of a society which increasingly fakes everything, even sincerity.
