When death struck

The year 2025 has been good and bad to my larger family. It is, indeed, a lugubrious year for all of us. It can also be referred to as Annus horribilis or a horrible year. But in everything we give God the glory for being in the land of the living. 2025 is the year we lost our beloved two siblings, a sister and a brother, as well as my and our highly revered father-in-law. It is a year death struck and snatched away our cherished and loved ones in almost one fell swoop without notice. This article is about grief and lamentation over the loss of loved ones. It is also about celebration of their worthy lives and lived experiences. It is a conversation between the past and the present. It is also a peep into the future with hope and excitement.

It is almost eight months that I lost my beloved and beautiful elder sister, Caroline Mgbecheta. The one I called my father and mother as well as my ardent supporter in all that I do succumbed to death, the grim reaper, in April 2025. Her demise overshadowed our Easter celebration this year. I didn’t know it was Easter season. None of the rituals and revelries associated with the season ever caught my attention. Her death at 90 came after a bout of illness. As we say in Igbo language, death will always have a witness.

However, we least expected that death would struck at the time it did. Having lost my father and my mother and a few other siblings many years back, she became a rallying point and a beacon of hope. In her, we see our late father and mother. She thus became a point of contact for certain historical inquiry and reference and wise counsel. Our wish for her was to stay longer than 90 but fate surprised all of us. Her death was, indeed, a great loss to all of us. Specifically, it was a personal loss to me for so many reasons. Finding it very difficult to process her loss, I phoned my good friend and brother, Dr. Christopher Odey, to quickly get me a copy of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Notes on Grief. Chris and I met at master’s class in UNILAG some years back. Since then, he has remained a good friend.

In ordering the small book, I strongly believe that it would enable me come to terms with my sister’s passage to the great beyond. The inimitable book actually armed me with coping mechanisms, lessons and practical ways to process the thought concerning the reality of my sister’s death. Initially, I didn’t want to tell anyone of my loss until people started calling me and expressing their condolences and giving me words of advice and encouragement. As the calls keep coming, the reality dawned on me that I have lost someone very close and dear to me.

One of them, Uncle Christopher, urged me to read Isaiah 41: 10-13: “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. Don’t tremble with fear. I am your God. I will make you strong, as I protect you with my arm and give you victories. Everyone who hates you will be terribly disgraced; those who attack will vanish into thin air. You will look around for those brutal enemies, but you won’t find them because they will be gone. I am the Lord your God. I am holding your hand, so don’t be afraid. I am here to help you.”  This Uncle read the passage for me to listen before our conversation ended. It was soul-stirring and comforting. It was like a balm of Gilead.

While coming to terms with the loss of my sister, my sick elder brother, Kingsley Obioha, also left us in September 2025. It was another devastating experience too. His demise was also a great loss for all of us. He had been bed-ridden for two decades after suffering stroke. His death at 84 was equally a huge loss to all of us. It was a personal loss to me too. He was my beloved brother. Like my elder sister, he too was a rallying point and a beacon of hope. He did his best in keeping the family together after the exit of our father and mother. Most of the things I said about my sister can equally be said about him. He was a man of God, a peacemaker and convivial fellow. He was loving and caring. Above all, he was generous. There is no way I can capture his essence in a short article like this.

While trying to overcome these losses, my amiable father-in-law, Ubald Ochieze, also left all of us in October 2025 at 91. My father-in-law was a great man. He was caring, considerate and cheerful. He was generous too. He inspired me in so many ways. My father-in-law was a witness of truth, a man of great faith and conviction. In our over 30 years of coming together, he remained a great admirer, adviser and a beacon of hope. He stood strongly behind me in my quest for higher degrees and was effusive with praises when I bagged my doctorate degree. He was all I needed in a father-in-law and I need not ask for more. I admire his philosophical attitude to life and acquisition of material things.

Their deaths remind us of the transient and ephemeral nature of life and coveting of material things. According to Adichie in her small book under reference, “Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language.” In my own case, grief can complicate matters and one’s views on life and living. For the first time, I lacked words to express my emotion of loss, anger and anxiety. There is no doubt that too much grief is a weary to the soul. But if it is adequately managed, expressing grief can be cathartic. It can lessen the pain of loss.

As the scripture says, the death of a good man is a transition to another sphere of life, hence the admonition, we should mourn like those who have faith. In other words, the death of a believer is not final. There is hope for another life in God’s kingdom where there will be no death or infirmity. Their demise also reminds us of the impermanence of life or its futility as captured by William Shakespeare in his tragic play, Macbeth: “Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, Creeps in this petty pace from day to day, To the last syllable of recorded time; The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a waking shadow, a poor player, That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more: it is like a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

They have played their part and gone to meet their maker where they will be handsomely rewarded. Goodnight my dear ones. May God grant your souls eternal repose in His kingdom.