Death Through the Eyes of Faith

My maternal grandpa, Daniel Ademola Ademuyiwa, after whom I was named, was my first personal encounter with our last enemy - death.

Before he passed, glaucoma had clouded his vision in darkness. Compounded by other ailments, he grew increasingly frail until he was largely immobile. I rarely saw him anywhere but lying in bed or sitting quietly for hours on end. He needed assistance to walk, so his journeys were few, often between his bed and his chair, and, on Sundays, from the house to the family Daihatsu Terios that carried us all to church.

At fourteen, filled with faith, I wanted to see him come alive again, just as I remembered him during my childhood visits with my grandparents in Lagos, Nigeria.

I suggested to my parents that I could go on walks with him across the expanse of our large South African backyard. Grandpa was eager too. We had our little adventures together, as loosely as you could call them that, creeping slowly on the brick paving.

Eventually, grandpa, feeling fatigued, would say, “Okay, that is enough for today.”

Our sauntering adventures came to an abrupt end one day as my grandpa tripped and landed with his knees on the herringbone brickwork. Aging became real in a new way, for aging was powerful enough to turn exercise into endangerment.’

All I could do for grandpa from that point was pray.

One midday, my mom told me, “Go and tell grandpa his food will be ready soon.”

I shuffled into his room and announced, “Grandpa, mommy says your food will be ready soon.”

I waited a moment, but there was no response. I walked to his bed and tapped him, then shook him, repeating the message. There was an eeriness to how limp his body felt.

“Mommy, Grandpa isn’t waking up.”

As if in a daze, an ambulance soon arrived. The two EMTs came out of grandpa’s room and shared that he had passed away.

Grandma went to sit down; she was distraught. My mom was communicating plans with the EMTs.

I stood present but aloof; it did not feel real. It was supposed to be like any other day. Yet, how could something like this happen?

After the ambulance left, I could tell my mom was not okay. She appeared more vulnerable than I had ever seen her before. The pain was revealed in her frown lines.

“It will be well,” my mom uttered, always one to respond in faith in the most trying of times.

There is a level of maturity one must grow into when death comes into one's life. I was more fortunate than others to have only been impacted by it at fourteen. You learn that when a loved one is ailing, even the family ails too.

In the days that passed, I remembered the number eighty-two.

I had, several years prior, asked my grandpa when he was in better health though still blind, when he would like to die. A wholly inappropriate question for a child to ask. But he always answered my ridiculously childish questions as best he could.

Still in his mid-sixties at the time, he, after relenting to my juvenile curiosity, said eighty-two seemed a good age for him to die.

I pondered that wistfully, God, he should still have had more than 12 years with us.

Death is a thief. An unnatural enemy whose very existence offends our human sensibilities, for God placed eternity into our hearts.

I found solace in knowing death was ultimately conquered at the cross. We will one day be risen in heavenly bodies. Grandpa’s eyes will be open to see the transcendent beauty of creation restored to its divine and sinless state.

Our home saw many visitors the following days and weeks, primarily our church family who came to offer their condolences. In the darkness of grief, Christ was our light.

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.” 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14