“To live in the heart of the beloved one is not to die.”
The earthly celebration of our bosom friend to eternity is very painful! Chris’ death is a big lesson for us. Chris Ononose was an outsized man, innocently charming and engaging. An introvert who was full of brilliance and winsomeness. He was a soft-spoken man with a dazzling personality. Chris, as we weep for your unexpected passage, your death is a reminder to psychedelic amongst man that, we are borrowers of the space we dwell in. We should thread life softly! softly!!
Image provided by author
As we morph from one stage to another in a journey of life, we often forget that our encircled clime is divinely a “survival of the fittest.” We live unconcerned daily as if it is by our wealth or power. In a contemporary world, and in the process of metamorphosis, we trample on the weak with the nauseating nonchalance of the strong. In the end, when we expire, the weak, the strong, we are all eternally committed to the same Mother Earth.
I am reluctant to be repetitious in celebrating a loved one to eternity, but each time death stares us in the face, we recline submissively into our earthly ignorance and arrogance. Death is an existential mystery that human beings need to demystify. When death creeps in and saunters spontaneously to snatch a beloved one from a joyful family; the family; friends, acquaintances and colleagues mourn, wail, and gnash teeth in an unending anguish. In the swaddle of the departed, the dead one has unloaded or demystified the agent of death; as the expired life cannot be a victim or agent of death anymore.
In the Empyrean, the dead one becomes the extraterrestrial being to feel empathy for the corporeal (those of us who are still alive). As the dead one deconstructs death itself, the dead one’s short-lived life reminds us that death is a necessary end, it will come when it will come. In an effort of man to attain self-actualization, man struggles with worthlessness of life. We are reminded that life is void. Void is life itself! Life is saturated with wisdom, insignificance, arrogance and ignorance. Only the ones endowed with unblemished wisdom will discern and understand the ephemeral joy of life. We are daily entangled with this nothingness, oblivious of the dead-alive in us weeping for the dead.
Our amiable and gentleman, Chris Ononose left us like he would come back in a jiffy, but as we painfully count minutes, hours, days in an unending and agonized thoughtfulness, the reality becomes obvious that he has gone to where we will all meet to part no more. “To live in the heart of the beloved one is not to die.” Chris, you have etched your imprint in the hearts of your family, friends and colleagues at Lagos Business School, Lagos, Nigeria; and those who have had encounters with you.
Whatever we do now whether by commission or omission is an instrument for future development. If only we know that, man’s mind is constructed with forgetfulness, we will dwell in it with mindfulness. Whatever we do now, oblivious or obvious, is what posterity will speak of us when we are no more! It is imperative that we live today by affecting humanity positively; and as if we’re going to die any moment or tomorrow. Life is just too short to waste! The death of a friend, colleague, relation or acquaintance is an esoteric lesson to all of us that, we will also exit this planet when we finally expire.
We pray God gives us and Chris’s families the fortitude to bear his irreparable loss. May his gentle soul rest in perfect peace.
