The Downside of Death & Loss

I remember vividly; the day I lost to Mukalazi Joshua, the post of sanitary prefect in the 2011 prefecture elections back in high school. In the even of the day, I went back to the dormitory and covered myself with my blanket and cried. I didn’t garner attention since most of the boys were out celebrating the victors such as the head prefect. My solace was that the gap was minimal. Joshua had about 594 votes, while I had about 540 out of an average of 1200 students. Others failed hard; their counterparts bore 1100 votes while they, 100 only.

No one loves losing in life, and as we grow, we will realize that it is part of life. The challenging part is how to deal with it. My best friend used to be my deskmate still that same year. He used to score highly; 73% and I used to mirror his score for my mark. A big fat 37% would be staring back at me and soon, Marvin always hid his papers from me, and I called him selfish for it. He only wanted to look out for me, so that I wouldn’t feel bad. He was always in the top three of the class, and I was a laughing stock even if I rubbed shoulders with him. My consolation in this was that I was still in the crème de la crème stream after students had been reshuffled in senior three. Problem was that the bwats from other streams had been brought to my class. I was about to descend the ladder of positions again.

Some souls choose to laugh losing off. It rubs others badly and they could end up doing crazy things. Among others, I have seen that basing on different factors, people who always lose tend to want everybody else to lose just like them. My joy was when I scored more than Marvin once in a while. I malignly wanted him to feel the pain of loss.

Depending on the situation, this could become very toxic. Remember the court of King Solomon? The woman who had slept on her child — when Solomon suggested that they halved the alive baby, consented. She meant to say to the actual mother of the child, ‘If I can’t have my child, neither should you yours!’

Loss sometimes pushes you to a corner where you are blinded to the degree of wishing that everyone else must lose like you have.

The other effect I’ve seen with loss is ‘brandishing’/cocooning a thing as a whole when one has been hurt. Specifically; we’ve seen many women say ‘all men are trash’ just because they lost out on that man. They suddenly think all men are dishonest or cheaters; making them lose out on even more, unless their thinking is renewed. Others have lost out on girls. They invested much, only for the girl to be won over by a mightier opponent in marriage. That loss then influences them to shun marriage. The entire sacrament reminds them of the loss, and depending on their speed to recover, it soon sets whatever notion they’ve decided to go with. And if it’s to hate marriage, they will hate marriage.

Now death itself is a type of loss. And, depending on some other factors (again), the victim would wish everyone else lost the same. These factors can be immaturity, grief or the inability to cope or believe what’s just happened.

After April 2009, I was jealous of every parent couple I saw, as I’d see someone missing whenever I saw my mother. I remember getting something in my throat, and a fist budging out my forehead, causing me to weep. Aunt Christine (who is a very close friend to my mom) noticed my tears and asked the why of them. I bluntly told her, “why does everyone else get to keep their dad and I lose mine? None of this is fair.” I don’t know how she took it seeing that she still had her husband, and their son was a class ahead of me.

C.S Lewis said that friendship begins at that point where we say, ‘what! You too!’ … When I matured, what healed me was the fact that I realized everybody loses something at different times. (This was the what-you-too aspect.) People lose objects, offices and people. I had to accept that my loss came at that time, but the humanness in me understood sympathy and empathy; to be able to pass it on to someone else who would have recently lost someone.

Sometimes never losing someone limits a person’s conveying of these emotions. When Paula, my senior six deskmate lost her father weeks ago, I made sure I availed for the vigil to keep her company and comfort her in every way. Having lost a father (though at an earlier stage), Paula would need someone who’s been there. Just because she lost hers later in life doesn’t mean she won’t have her own share of challenges. Experiencing all this only compels each of us to pray harder for our friends’ parents or relatives to have a longer life…

Having looked at the downside of loss (which is wishing that everyone else lost as well or cocooning an aspect to be entirely bad), let’s peep into that of death particularly. From my own point of view, whenever I lost someone, I’d grieve (which seems to be the case for everyone), and the lie was that it’d end there.

After years of observing, I noticed I sought out older men to be fitted in the frame of ‘mentor’. I know of a 60-year-old who thinks I am so similar to one of his favorite preachers. In the dawn of our chatting, I found it hard to call him by his name. I instead nicknamed him ‘pops’. I also had become so close to my pastor at some point and calling him ‘spiritual father’ sounded very, touching. It hit me in the long run that having lost a father 14 years ago, part of me still didn’t believe it. Unbeknownst to me, my subconscious mind went about trying to ‘replace’ him with these father figures I came across.

Of course no one can replace a parent, but an interim would come close. I couldn’t bear never having to use the noun ‘dad’ or ‘father’ ever again in my life. So, I found ways of keeping the nouns active, even when I didn’t intend to consciously!

When my best friend Sam died, the same cycle continued. I’d find potential replacements to him. What happens to us; if we find a virtue or anything that reminds us of that particular person in any other person, we tend to want to meet the latter more often. Sam was such a comedian, and he loved laughing out loud. When I meet a person who does the same, my brain is registering an environs exactly the same as Sam would create when we met. I and Sam often met and prayed as well. Now if this person was a comedian or laughed but never prayed, my countenance would fall. I’d find myself grieving again, for I had found parts of Sam but not Sam as a whole. This has both advantages (parts) and disadvantages (not as a whole).

The late brother I follow, (out of much respect) never was fond of me. In brief, we were in the same class and thus we were always being compared to each other even if he was older by two years. This caused tension and distance, and indirectly, it was a subtle form of loss. I’d see how other boys were protected and cared for by their older siblings in high school, and I desired the same, but I didn’t have it.

What did I do? I created close friends, who to them, I was a mere friend, but to me, I created a box in my construct — a brother zone — where I’d place them and relate with them as the heroic avatars I’d seen others’ big brothers be.

We’ve seen cases where men get married again and they still call the new lady the deceased or the ex’s name. The other downside is when say; one of the parents gets remarried but the children just can’t find all the virtues of their biological parent(s) in the step. They end up going on rampage due to failure to understand their surviving parent’s needs. For both of these, perhaps some boxes ticked but not all. This can all get psychological in the long run.

In conclusion, you might be waiting for a solution for today’s article, but this one’s antidote only comes from wisdom and maturity from one’s life’s experience. Losing comes with life, and if we never lose, we wouldn’t understand the joy that comes with winning. When loss comes as death, we get to experience something with which we can encourage and comfort someone else when their turn of losing comes. I think a widow would feel more comforted by another woman who’s been widowed for some time. The victim will bear in mind that, ‘if so and so went through it, I too will’. I am not undermining the ministry of one who has never experienced it. I’m only saying, for one who has, their comfort will transcend the degree of those who haven’t.

About seeking to replace; well, it’d do good if the person the victim is trying to find solace in (like for my case, the brother zoned ones, or the likes of ‘pops’) know(s) the background of what’s happening to the object. Sometimes it takes discernment by the subject; because my void greatly diminished when those friends reciprocated that referencing, by calling me their little brother or when a ‘foster’ father called me ‘sonny’.

Every person who’s gone through loss needs comfort and wholeness in order to heal, and I’ve found mine not in hugs, or kisses, or calls (though I am not against these); but in wisdom and knowledge such as I have shared in some of the various examples I have given. Yes, hugs can bring some degree of comfort, but not all losses in life will be comforted by hugs.

Get wisdom, and in all thy getting, get understanding.

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Isaiah 66:13 As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you; and you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.