Here Today Gone Tomorrow

Just this morning, we woke up to the news of the demise of Stephen Okechukwu Keshi. Yes, it happened. Unexpected and shocking as it might be. The nation's cup winner as a player and a coach is no more. He's gone.

Who do we hold accountable?
Is this the pact we signed up with life? Here today and gone tomorrow? Forever?

Incidents like this usually triggers off questions deep inside our minds.
Questions that paralyzes my thought.
Questions about Whys.
Why life?
Why death?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why do people live today and flourish, only to die tomorrow and be forgotten?
Why this? Why that?

Someone said, "people die only after they have fulfilled their destinies, or purposes in life"
I ask, what about the children that die young. They as well have fulfilled their destinies huh?  Or the infants that die few minutes after birth, perhaps their sole purpose or destiny in life was to cry.

Some months back, I lost a friend to a fire incident. This friend of mine (may his soul rest in peace) was a student of Medicine, and was about rounding off before the tragic incident. Was he not supposed to be a "destined" medical doctor, after passing through primary and secondary school, scaling through JAMB and post UTME and making painstaking efforts to meet the requirements in order to remain a student of Medicine?

Sadly, there are no answers to the many questions life throws at us, and for the reverence and fear we have, we cannot question the Almighty. But do we have questions? Yes, we sure do.  Even when we pretend not to, or are afraid to ask, the questions resides deep in our curious minds, and reoccur often only to be silenced.

King Solomon,  the wisest king in the Bible was faced with similar same life questions. Of which he concluded, "life is useless"  and in a different verse he wrote, "Here is what I have found out: the best thing we can do is eat and drink and enjoy what we have worked for during the short life that God has given us; this is our fate."

Indeed, it is truly a short life. No matter how long you live, you would be dead much longer. So, longevity alone doesn't mean we have led a meaningful life. Neither does the wealth we amass nor the accolades we are ascribed. The meaning of life is the meaning we give it. The smiles we put on the faces of each other, the happiness, the contentment, the reason to live through the uncertainties of life and hope.

We are here today, but we won't always be here. Someday we'll go, maybe tomorrow, maybe next. This is not the time when you say "fire" or "I reject it" or "it is not my portion". It is not a wise thing to say, well, neither is asking "unanswerable questions". It is best we do the good we can today, to do it now and every limited time the opportunity arises.