He is a man who has visited almost every family, neighborhood, community, society, and nation. His history dates back to the very beginning of the history of man. He is present at different parts of the world at the same time. He walks in the shadows of silence.
He tries to inhabit everything possible in order to make it easier to enlarge his coast. In the car we travel in, even within the city, he tries to inhabit it; When we fall ill, he sees it as an opportunity to step in; As natural disasters occur, he is right at the middle of it all – over 200,000 lives gone in Haiti alone; Where people are seeking fun in the form of unprotected sex, he plants his seeds there in the form of STD’s and so many lives have gone that way; infants are not spared in this as some of them are being taken even before they get to see the light of the day – stillbirth; As we travel on the seas, he opens his mouth wide waiting for a capsize to occur so that he can swallow lives; even through the food we put in our mouth, a lot of lives have been lost – food poisoning; in so many forms, far more than I can mention, he has taken millions of lives. He is the invincible man in a long black coat; he is popular called DEATH.
I woke up by 5:00am yesterday 29th January to the news of the demise of my aunt’s husband who has been hospitalized for the past two weeks. The man in a long black coat strolled into my uncle-in-law’s hospital ward and did what he likes doing best at exactly 4:55am. My aunt and her husband live with their daughter and a few relatives in the flat next to ours. He wasn’t able to walk when he fell ill on that fateful 16th day of January 2010, I and some other person were the ones who carried him into the car that was to take him to the hospital but little did I know that my gesture was my ‘goodbye’ to him.
This is not my first experience of death just like many of you, although in my own case I haven’t lost a parent or sibling to know how exactly that feels, but I can imagine what it is like. Now, considering the fact that most of us have experienced grief over the loss of someone close to us, one question always come to mind:
What have we learnt from these experiences?
Living a great life isn’t necessarily about the experiences you’ve had, but about what you’ve done with your experiences no matter how few or much they might have been.
I have seen people that have made money die - so to what end are you striving to make money?
People have died right in the seat of power – to what end do you want to get power by all means?
People have graduated with fantastic results only to die without using those degrees – what are you using your degree for?
People have lost their spouses to ‘the man in the long black coat’ on the very day of their wedding – to what end are you thinking that marriage is all and all?
A few weeks ago, a bank manager in Port Harcourt was shot dead on his way back home from work – what a sad end to a hot job!
Sometimes, it is like sorrow is the fence of happiness – while there is a large compound (joy), we can’t leave or enter that compound without passing through the fence (sorrow).
Here is a statement we all know and have been using: “vanity upon vanity, all is vanity” but a whole lot of us have failed to look intricately into the meaning of the statement. We have failed to realize that we walk in and out of the shadows of silence quite frequently. We have failed to realize that the only time to live our best life is TODAY - for we do not know what tomorrow brings. We use greedy and selfish prayers to shield ourselves from the reality that all the prosperity we seek will still shrivel to irrelevance. Only the prosperity of the soul (Salvation) will be eternal. Unfortunately, prosperity is being spelt ‘covetousness’ just as faith is being spelt ‘anticipation’ by a lot of people who seek for that which is material instead of seeking that which is eternal.
As I watched people come to give their condolence to my bereaved aunt, I saw people who have been so busy that they’ve NEVER come to see this man in all the times he had fell ill – but now that he is dead, the time has been suddenly created. At this point, it no longer matters what they do – even if they choose to buy a golden casket for him, it doesn’t matter because the casket is mere garbage to be dumped six-feet underground. Be there for people when they are alive not when they are dead!
I have grown to understand that all we are striving for is ‘survival’ but the BIG question still remains, what are YOU surviving for? You’ve had the money, the spouse, the kids, the degrees, the hot job, the cars, the houses, the investments and all that, so, what next?
Here is what I think:
Keeping aside materialism (which you will never finish amassing), what else are YOU achieving? This calls for deep thinking dear friends – think deep! What else are YOU achieving? Remember, your biography when you DIE won’t be an account of your material achievements.
My life started changing from the first time I wrote down my biography and saw that what I wrote wasn’t in line with how I was living. If you truly want to add more meaning to your life, take out a few minutes and write out what you want your biography to be like and then compare it with your lifestyle.
As most of us may know, the KISS OF DEATH is one that we will all get someday and we don’t know when exactly it will happen even though we all pray for long life - We are all going to host the man in the long black coat.
Great religious leaders in the Bible and all over the world have all been visited by the man in the long black coat.
My prayer for YOU all: As much as we pray for long life & prosperity, our lives should count on daily basis for as long as the MAN IN THE LONG BLACK COAT is yet to give us a personal visit. Make an impact in your world, Live your best life today!
