Death, Life and the Space in Between

By Nick Laing
Mission Partner in Uganda

 

Just two days ago my won­der­ful Uncle Andrew died. Although I was not close with him myself, my parents and also my sister were very close, and he con­trib­uted much to their lives, espe­cially in recent years. Our prayers, sorrow and grat­it­ude are with his family, espe­cially his wife Janice and chil­dren Katie, Emma and Hamish.

Here in Uganda, death is far more common even in New Zealand and we are con­fron­ted by it con­tinu­ally. Our neigh­bour Lucy is super con­nec­ted to our sur­round­ing com­munity, and it seems hardly a month goes by when she doesn’t attend a funeral or a wedding. There are more deadly ill­nesses here that affect younger people, and obvi­ously, our weak health system fails to prevent too many unne­ces­sary deaths.

I encounter death all too often through my work. I’ll never forget last year when I got a call from a nurse in one of our remote OneDay Health centers with the bad news that a young man had been bitten by a snake. His family refused to take him to the hos­pital due to lack of money, and after a few hours, he died at the health center. I’m proud of our 33 nurses in their remote OneDay health centers, that while they often brush with death, they are in the every­day busi­ness of saving lives by offer­ing women life through family plan­ning and antenatal care, curing malaria and pneu­mo­nia, and life-saving emer­gency med­ic­a­tion. It’s a strange jux­ta­pos­i­tion that just recently we sent out our annual report cel­eb­rat­ing 100,000 patients treated in the most remote areas of Uganda, while at the same time I mourn my uncle and look forward to Easter.

Each time I encounter death I am struck by an obvious yet easily ignored truth — Life is tem­por­ary. I can’t help but be reminded both of the pre­cious time we have and of our own mor­tal­ity. A good friend of my uncle just shared with me.

“We are all reminded that our time on earth is tem­por­ary so we must use it well.”

Or in the words of Gandalf: “All we have to do is decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

Death and life can feel so close. The space between is thin, even at our first breath. The most dan­ger­ous moment in all of our lives (and our mothers’!) is the very moment of our birth. At that bor­der­line both over­flow­ing joy and deep sorrow are near real­it­ies, hanging in the balance. And of course, we don’t know how long that time is. Many of the greatest people have had their lives cut too short, some due to their great­ness. Kurt Cobain died before 30. Martin Luther King was murdered before he reached 40. Ugandan Bishop Janani Luwum was mar­tyred before 60 for stand­ing up to Idi Amin’s corrupt gov­ern­ment. Uncle Andrew was only 69.

As a Jesus fol­lower, this paradox comes home to me, even more, this weekend. He died far too young in his mid-thirties, with only three years to carry out his mission and do all the stuff we’ve heard about:

- Call his disciples
— Bring new life and healing to phys­ical, spir­itual and emo­tional wounds
— Start a world-chan­ging movement
— Be betrayed by one of his closest friends.

In this strange story, Jesus went will­ingly to his own death, to provide a new kind of life for every­one. To redeem not through power or viol­ence, but through weak­ness and sac­ri­fice. To offer us a life full of unlikely, yet beau­ti­ful, para­doxes. A life where we should somehow put others above ourselves (still haven’t figured that out). A life that is eternal but starts now. A life where death remains abhor­rent but has somehow been over­come and need no longer be feared. A life that fills and covers that space in between our earthly life and death.

So as I mourn Andrew, remem­ber Easter and keep our sac­ri­fi­cial remote nurses in my heart, I am filled with sorrow, but not despair, because of a belief I hold close to my soul. I live in hope that life is eternal, not ending after phys­ical death. And when I encounter that space between life and death, I try and hold my faith within the pro­found mystery of what is, and what is to come.

“So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfold­ing grace. These hard times are small pota­toes com­pared to the coming good times, the lavish cel­eb­ra­tion pre­pared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomor­row. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.” Apostle Paul, writing from a prison cell.

This article was ori­gin­ally posted during the Easter season on Nick’s blog which you can visit here. Learn more about Nick and Tessa Laing here.