The Grandest of all mysteries - We have to come and go. But how far do we go?

Probably, there has not been such a single moment where so wide were the gates of life’s mysteries - opened up to me - as the period my mother died in February 1998. She had lived some awesome eighty-nine years of great history.  It will be 20 years soon since she was interred.

I was 32 years old by the time my mother passed on. Interestingly, over the years I had grown up believing and knowing my mother was immortal. I cannot connect the genesis of this conviction, but probably like every child, my mum was forever my hero.  She would never die. Strangely – news of her death did not break me and I do recall making arrangements to travel for the preparation of her final rites without a heartbreak. She spoke as one who was in deep control and did everything within her ability to comfort me.

During this period, one of my elder sister was going through a depression and I made a point of visiting her to also find out how she was fairing and passively discuss burial arrangement. I was heartbroken when I saw her in a very sorry state. But things turned around. She actually took the role of comforting me with her deep talk.

Worth noting – my sister had been very close to me since childhood. She was like a mum to me and I recall many things in regards to our interaction. But one experience that has never left me – is our conversation this very day I visited her.

My sister told me, I was the last person she expected to believe our mum had died. That I should know better than anyone else, that our mother lives forever. That she will not attend our mother’s funeral because our mother’s forever spirit is still around and my sister can always talk to her wherever she wishes to. She, however, encouraged me to attend my mother funeral otherwise our relatives may never understand or forgive me if I did not. Kind of a PR request.

And so I traveled to Nyahururu with my family where my Mother was interred. I was in high spirit and very jovial which was a contrast to everyone else. There were many heartbroken people and this touched me a great deal. At some point – I could not hold it and I equally broke down. Not because of my mum but more because of the pain everyone else was experiencing. Then one interesting thing happened.

Pamela – my young niece at the age of twenty years approached me to solely comfort me. She Held me by the shoulders and looked directly into my eyes. Her eyes turned into those of a senior adult. She told me to calm down and pay attention to her grandmother. She is not going anywhere yet, but she would eventually. She went on to explain to me that death does not exist in the absolute sense. It is the mysteries of death that we should reflect and pay attention to more than we should the mysteries of birth. That, her grandmother’s spirit is hovering around to comfort us. Pamela took me through several other stages of the connection between the soul personality and that of the greater whole – merging and emerging. it was a very deep conversation coming from a child who never went to school or interacted with free thinkers in city life.

Ultimately while at the burial, the words of Pamela and those of my sister Waveroni uttered two days earlier, indeed combined into a great torrent.

To cut the story short – both sister Waveroni and my niece Pamela passed on but my experience and the conversation has never left me. What did Waveroni and Pamela know that I did not know? My experience with them gives me a window to understanding the so- called prodigies.  Indeed scientists themselves recognize that genetics and heredity cannot entirely explain the extraordinary faculties of such individual.

But something major continued to happen for a while and several years later. My mother seemed to have taken a while to leave. For several years she remained earthbound for no any other reason but watch her last born son (that is me) she was so attached to at the material plane. She appeared to me even in broad daylight. I once told my wife that Cucu Wa Pamela (My mother that is), keeps on coming and even right now she is at the doorstep. Well, my wife, Sezi could not see her, but I could. I do remember several years’ later pleading with Cucu Wa Pamela to continue with her forever journey – and that I would be fine. She never appeared again. Until one day in a helpless situation, I asked for her help – and I surely got it.  That was in 2016 in the streets of Nairobi.

By writing this piece today – I’m persuaded to urge the reader to reflect more into the mysteries of death. Death probably holds the key to life. The mystery of death is so profound that, despite the millennia of religious doctrine, mythology, scientific research, and the many theories and explanations that exist on the subject, people today are more confused than ever about it. Even within individual religious groups there is often a stark difference of opinion on the nature of death.

Something has to die for new to come. Our bodies are just temporary vehicle housing something permanent and spiritual that is subjectively less restricted. Universal soul infuses all creation and so gradually evolves towards the perfection of its own nature. We are in essence pure spirit of the universal whole, connected to everything and each other.  Through experience over the years, it is clear to me – silence, an attitude devoid of anger does open one to unlimited listening and conversation of the greater whole.

Science has looked deep into the single-celled organism with the detailed glare. It does seem a cell has a mandate to survive and self-preservation – but comes that one call – it stop receiving vitality and withers off communicating to the next neighboring cell. They all start to die in unison. Like everything is over for the moment. In other words, it appears that death is a natural part of life where everything on earth eventually dies.

Let me end this my quoting some writing by a great Persian poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. He was a 13th-century Persian poet, an Islamic dervish, and a Sufi mystic. He is regarded as one of the greatest spiritual masters and poetical intellects. Born in 1207 AD, he belonged to a family of learned theologians.

“I died as mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was human,
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?
Yet once more I shall die human,
To soar with angels blessed above.
And when I sacrifice my angel soul
I shall become what no mind ever conceived.
As a human, I will die once more,
Reborn, I will with the angels soar.
And when I let my angel body go,
I shall be more than mortal mind can know.”

Let me sum it by saying - Earthly life is simply one of two phases of cosmic life, these two phases succeeding one another indefinitely in the eternal cycle of immortality.