The Fault In Our Stars

I recently taught my wife how to download torrents for movies on the internet and she learned very fast. Before I knew it, she was recommending movies she thought I would enjoy. So, she glowingly mentioned 'The Fault in Our Stars' some days ago and so I obliged and finally garnered enough patience to sit through the drama. Alas, her sterling recommendation was devoid of any element of hyperbole. The drama is indeed all that and a bag of chips thus the reason why I would recommend it for any insightful and deep-thinking person who seeks beyond the inane obscenities that have now pervaded the film industry.

The story essentially centered around two young terminally-ill

young people who despite their seemingly insurmountable health challenges fell in love. It wasn't the attendant physiological and biochemical disturbances their passionate love heralded that intrigued me; No. Far from it! We see that on E! everyday. It was the manner with which they cared for themselves even with the knowledge that death was a few yards away. At some point, the boy became really sick and asked his two closest friends to read him their eulogies. He said he wanted to attend his own funeral before he died. Usually, that would have been the 'wow' moment for me were this film one of the regulars. But no, so brilliant was this drama that this was just one of many such awe-inspiring moments. It made me reflect on something that crosses my mind every now and then. If you had to sit through your own funeral listening to elegies from 'friends and family', would you smile knowing they were speaking the truth about the beautiful life you lived or would you smirk knowing they were just being polite because courtesy demanded that they reserved what they really felt about the way you lived and so reeled out some bullshit about how wonderful a person you were. Trust me, you'll always know which it is. You just may never admit it.

Humans are naturally averse to the topic of death. It is something, even though we know is certain, we prefer to talk about in hushed tones. This I find rather unfortunate. Unfortunate, chiefly because I believe our world would probably be a better place if we came to terms with our mortality and the vanity of our existence. Every minute, God uses death to remind us that we are here transiently. That, one day, our hearts will stop like Segun Adebo's did in March. Like Folasade Odeneye's did two years and Adeolu Okulate's last year. Like someone's own somewhere will even before I finish this post. That is what we signed up for. Because 'there is an appointed time to be born and a set time to die' as Ecclesiastes admonishes us. To this end, I think people - Nigerians especially- should spend more time at funerals. As grim as that sounds, such occasions afford us the opportunity to reflect and revise the essence of our beings. Of course, I am assuming, you are not only going there to wrestle others for small-chops and souvenirs. One of my favorite lines from the movie was from Hazel at her lover's funeral. She said and I quote 'Funerals are not for the dead but for the living'. Damn! That's one 'heavy' assertion. Heavy to the tune of thousands of tonnes actually. Why? We often tag funerals in Nigeria as 'Celebration of Life', 'Glorious Exit', etc. We focus largely on the deceased so we kill cows and buy diamond-crusted caskets instead of teaching and reminding the living about the vanity of this rat race and the importance of doing good always.

You may think back now and fear your eulogy will essentially be 'wash'. Most of the watery and vague verses will try to portray you in good light to the strangers who never really knew you. But, you knew yourself so those verses won't fool you. You would smirk at the charade if you were seated in the front row instead of lying still from rigor mortis in the open casket at the front of the church. Alas, there's a chance to swap the smirk for a wholehearted smile on that inevitable day. Start to think of yourself less but of other people and how little acts of kindness can change our world. Give, not because you expect a reward but because God created the rich and the poor. Give, because according to James Keller, a candle loses nothing by lighting another candle and happiness never decreases by being shared. 

          "Here lies Oluwole...

           Husband of one...

           Father of three... 

           Son of God...

           Brother to a few... 

           Friend of many...

           Doctor to multitudes...

           Fisher of men"

My epitaph should read something like that. I haven't quite completed my eulogy though as I have come to find that every day we live on Earth we pen a line of that composition. So, we are not likely to complete it till the day we breathe our last. I encourage everyone to at least start writing one today, at least to this point of your life. Appreciate the privilege you have to improve what will be written and said about you. You are alive. It means God isn't done with you yet. Make it count!

Ultimately, I hope to live well enough that death won't scare me. That assures me I'll be smiling when it's just pitch darkness and seemingly eerie silence. 

Below are the lyrics of one of the most profound hymns I ever heard. Every line should be digested and regurgitated daily. These words of Charlotte Elliot (1789 - 1891) do I leave you with.

1. My God, my Father, while I stray
Far from my home on life's rough way
Oh, teach me from my heart to say,
"Thy will be done."

2. Though dark my path and sad my lot,
Let me be still and murmur not
Or breathe the prayer divinely taught,
"Thy will be done."

3. What though in lonely grief I sigh
For friends beloved, no longer nigh,
Submissive still would I reply--
"Thy will be done."

4. Though Thou hast called me to resign
What most I prized, it ne'er was mine;
I have but yielded what was Thine--
"Thy will be done."

5. Should grief or sickness waste away
My life in premature decay,
My Father, still I strive to say,
"Thy will be done."

6. Let but my fainting heart be blest
With Thy sweet Spirit for its Guest;
My God, to Thee I leave the rest--
"Thy will be done."

7. Renew my will from day to day;
Blend it with Thine and take away
All that now makes it hard to say,
"Thy will be done."

8. Then, when on earth I breathe no more,
The prayer, oft mixed with tears before,
I'll sing upon a happier shore,
"Thy will be done."