The Living Have No Time

I had come home from a day of work and was bored in the evening. I went to my room to sleep, laid down on my bed and sleep eluded me. I decided to resume a game - words with friends - on my iPad but my random opponents were taking forever to make their moves. I asked my friend to install the game app so we could play. He seemed rather busy. I suspect he was watching soccer because my brothers were watching a live game at the same time. Now I was getting really bored.

Then someone crossed my mind. My uncle, a close relative and friend of my nuclear family. When we were young, he visited us often. He was a bachelor then and one of the few uncles I could actually gist and laugh with. He visited on most Sundays and my siblings and I did not think he chose that visiting day coincidentally because my mum cooked her special fried rice only on Sundays. The thought made us giggle whenever he strolled in on Sunday evenings but we understood: he was a bachelor and all that.

One day, he introduced his wife-to-be to our family and we were all happy for him. I was chosen to be one of the bridesmaids. I went out with his fiancé to have my measurement for the dress taken and we chatted a bit. She seemed nice and homely and virtuous and had a few words of advice for the young lady that I was, that I still am. I looked forward to the wedding but I wasn't able to attend because the date fell in the middle of my semester exams at the university. My cousin had to replace me on the bridal train and the dress was adjusted to fit her. I heard the wedding ceremony went very well.

A couple of years after the wedding, my uncle and his family were traveling to the village for the Christmas holidays and they were involved in a car accident. They lost their lives. My uncle, his wife, their kids and someone else in the vehicle. We had travelled a few days ahead of them to the village and were expecting them to arrive that evening. The news of their death was heart-breaking. Deeply saddening. Unbelievable.

I thought about him that evening as I laid on my bed and it hit me that I never heard anyone mention him and his family after the period of the unfortunate incident. Maybe because the memory of the incident was too painful and everyone had moved on. We had things to do, people to see, targets to meet and dreams to actualize. We lived and left the dead to face their fate. We could choose to do the occasional remembrance or memorial but that was it. We still had to leave the past behind and face squarely the days of our lives.

Let us that live have eternity in our hearts.