BY -@KAKA LUCAS (12^TH August 12, 2021)

Job 1:21

²¹He said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return there; the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’.

Today I woke up with what my family back home will call ‘mafeeling’. Speaking for myself, being in foreign land isn’t one of the best when things happen back home. Will it be a wedding, a newborn or other success, or on the other hand, sickness, accidents and god forbid, when death occurs it  drills and paddle my heart like constrictors  cracking a stone in a mining place.

Last week I lost a cousin of mine, Kavoli Mbuvu. I wasn’t close to her that much, but I am close to the family in general. It is so funny how I took my late uncle Luke’s character of being a family man so a death like this one can affect me just as my sister’s death could have.

Waking up to a WhatsApp group full of messages and one message updating the proceedings for her burial, my heart just sank with a cloud of sadness ‘I should have been there to send her off’.

In moments like these, when life seems full of trouble and death cheering my mood swing, I play local music and just chill. While in these moments today, it was hard for me to maintain an attitude of gratitude .My head kept pounding like a blacksmith, and home sickness went through my mind. All I could see is death, in my family, problems like a blackened storm cloud casting a dark shadow on my family.

From ash-Wednesday when I lost a brother and all started going on well despite covid19, I thought death will not knock my door soon. But alas here it is. Like me when things are all fine, and all is smooth, we relax ourselves and sometimes take things for granted, we bliss, sit comfortably and be familiar with the goodies …. simply forgetting to be grateful.

My friend, do you know what gratitude is?

Let me help you with my definition. Gratitude is a habit. It is a way of looking at the world and all the good things in it with a feeling of appreciation regardless of whether or not your current situation is to your liking. This is a bitter truth. Just as success is willingness to run even when the distance is unknown, so is gratitude.

To my family and I, in these trial moments of death and sickness…. Gratitude is a heart-centered approach to being at peace with oneself and with all one has. Practicing the attitude of gratitude is like lighting a bulb in a dark forest, it attracts all kinds of insects, so is an attitude of gratitude, it attracts even more blessings in once life when it is practiced sincerely.

So as we lay our cousin to sleep, let’s go out there and be people of gratitude, whatever you have to do, and to whoever you have to be thankful for, say it out loud ‘THANK YOU’, and for the time we spend with Kavoli, we are grateful.

May her soul and the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace.