He lays motionless on his deathbed, pretty much unsure of how events are unfolding, the sight of people both loved ones and significant others are very clear as he sees and hears their fluid wailing and lamenting orchestrated by their grief. He attempts to shout to alert all that, he is very much alive but to his utter dismay none even observes his vain plea for attention no matter how hard he tries. Panicked stricken, he hears his own voice which he would have unequivocally called echo were he not confused as to what is happening now. Funny enough, he is so uniquely aware of his own physical body from the ethereal. “What is happening?” he shouts.
For many of us we have experienced Death in so many ways, be it in seasons dry or seasons wet, on occasions least expected leaving us so devastated, having to face the upward hill of life without someone fond, without that child who gives meaning to our very existence, without that parent, gracious benefactor friend or relative.
But have we really in actuality thought about the “grand design of death”? Many people thread too cautiously and leave waters they could have wallowed in and padded all because they are afraid of death too much. We refuse blatantly to embark on that journey, mission or adventure plainly because we are afraid of death, that notwithstanding when death’s mind-blowing design is employed positively we shall find and come to earnestly appreciate that Death is and will be one of the single greatest creation of all time.
Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi says live each day as if it were your last, now alluding to this very saying we might certainly be right someday. Be as it may, we must therefore juxtapose most significant actions of our lives against death for it has been proven that most of the things we fear so much drop flat at the sight of death leaving us to focus on the very important ones, I mean the ones that make us feel worthy of our existence on earth. “If today were my last, would I do what I am doing?” This simple but profound phrase will spur us on; keep us up and doing no matter whatever odd. It gives us the audacity and tenacity to follow our hearts and indulge in things that count chiefly because we know someday we will die unless biblical-wise we survive till the time of rapture.
Death therefore becomes at once, the end of the body’s old journey and the beginning of the soul’s new journey. It is the single destination we all share; rich or poor, young or old. An inference can be drawn from the sinking of the Titanic. In assessing the disaster of those saved, they had two categories, “Dead or Alive”. There was neither “Rich Dead nor Poor Dead”. They were all grouped under one category, “Dead”, death is death, whether you occupied a first class compartment on the ship or not.
We should perceive Death as a great design to assist us in contributing our utmost quota here on earth, we should live and act based on our own informed intuitions and convictions and clearly demonstrate in an unwavering manner where we stand in all circumstances here on earth for the man who won't die for something is not fit to live Says Martin Luther King, Jr; because the fear of death is the most unjustified of all fears says Albert Einstein.
In the words of Mark Twain, we understand that the fear of death emanates from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time. The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of our eternity says Lucius Annaeus Seneca; for death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity as was written by William Penn.
Therefore, a dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist says Stewart Alsop; so that the life of the dead may be placed in the memory of the living as opined by Marcus Tullius Cicero. Death is no more than passing from one room into another. But there’s a difference for me, you know, because in that other room I shall be able to see.” Says Helen Keller
And as such in summing it up, “The meaning of life is that it stops” declares Franz Kafka thereby knowing very well that our lives will stop one day should not scare us but rather make us fill our numbered days with giving for it is in giving that we live and find our being. We should give whole heartedly in our professional lives, parental lives, in the service to mankind, etc. and to me this is the grand design of death. This is what death was designed to do for us. If today were my last would I do what I am doing now? That unnecessary bickering, envy, hatred, thievery, “ways and means”, laziness, will they stand in the face of death?


Michael Dale-Asiedu,