My condolences

2017 was supposed to be the year, the recovery from the horrid 2016, the year of completion.
But now it’s only the fourth month and I’ve lost count of how many RIP’s i’ve seen on my timeline for my fellow youth.
I’m not trying to jinx the year, I just don’t know what’s going on. Why are we as the youth dying so much? Who did we offend? Is there a point we’re missing?
From university killings to the Langata accident and so many people in between. Makes you wonder what battle it is we’re fighting.
It’s normal to ‘pass condolences’ when someone leaves. It’s what’s expected. But in all honesty I can’t handle this phrase. I can’t bring myself to offer condolences.
It’s uncouth, weird to make it mild. But when you lose someone, in my opinion, you get into a haze before it hits you. A sort of confusion before you can detach yourself from this being who was there in flesh and blood. So when I lost someone last year and people kept repeating this phrase to my face I was devastated.
I wasn’t ready to let go and half the world is telling you life moves on. They want you to be strong and be able to continue. But how do you move on as if nothing happened? How do you erase someone from your life that fast.
Maybe it’s just me.
But loss of a loved one, a friend, a relative is not something that a phrase can fix.
If you can be there for someone who is grieving don’t coerce them to move on. Listen to them lament. Walk them through grief and denial. Hold them through acceptance.
It’s easy to say life happens, but they don’t know why it happened to them and not anyone else.
Same way we don’t understand why we the youth are perishing. Or maybe we do we’re just in denial.
As we mourn the death of our mates and peers. Let it not just be another ‘condolence’ message on our timelines or a consoling ‘life happens’ text.
Let’s take initiative to stay alive; don’t drive while drunk, take an Uber, you don’t prove anything with that big car, don’t leave your friends just anywhere, be accountable, don’t look as your peers move a stray only to hear some man killed him/her because they didn’t consent to sex and you could have played a part to protect them. Don’t be the one push your friends beyond their limit and have to live with the guilt.
The number of deaths is alarming, and it’s us the youth who are perishing. As some of you go to light a candle today for Marcia I pray it’s the last candle we’re lighting as April comes to an end. As we all make it a prerogative to stay alive and trust that this dark cloud passes.