Earlier this month I stumbled on Baadaye, a new single by Amos and Josh that drove me to tears in the way that only good art can.
In four minutes and thirteen seconds they took me to one of the most difficult days of my life-a dreary Saturday in late 2011 when we laid my Gogo to rest. Nothing quite shakes the human soul like death in the family.
It’s hard to put it into words. It’s like all the pain in the world pitches camp in your soul and holds a never-ending feast on your emotions. Grief numbs you to the world and amplifies your sensitivity to pain.
As your writhe, you realize that all the love in your life is potential loss. Your dear ones will one day die and the insufferable pain will once more descend upon you. As the certainty of death sinks in, it is easy to despair.
Why live? Why love? Why care? It will all end in an instance-without warning.
What folly this business of living is.
Vanity of vanities…
Unless…
Unless there’s more.
Unless our separation is but a temporary inconvenience.
Unless life as we know it is only one leg of the journey.
Unless there is life after death.
I have no scientific proof of the afterlife, but I have hope. This hope offers my tattered soul a small comfort-that I will be reunited with my departed. Through their poetically written and emotively delivered song they not only reminded me of my loss-but of the hope that followed.
Safiri salama, msalimu Maulana (Travel safely, greet God for me)
Tutaonana baadaye (We will see each other later)
© Jelimo Chelagat, 2015
jchelagat.com 