Last week Sunday, I promised someone I was going to have a wonderful weekend and make a poem out of it. Thus, since Monday, I had been thinking of what to do in order to have a weekend story to tell. It turned out eventually that I had a weekend different from what I have had in recent times. Unfortunately, it was for the wrong reasons.
On Friday evening, just as I was stepping out thinking of how my weekend would turn out, I received a call from my dad informing me of the demise of one of the teachers who thought me at high school. I froze! It took almost a minute before I realized I was on the road. This man demystified Organic Chemistry to me and my colleagues in our final year in secondary school. Calm, easy going, humble, gentle and kind to a fault. I'm not saying this because he is late and just have to say sweet things about him. No! He was a really good man who was devoted to his job and to his service to God. Unfortunately he died in his very early forty's, after a brief illness. For three days, there's been a recurring question in my mind: "Why do good people die young?"
I have tried thinking of how he spent his life to see if I could find an obvious evil he did to people so that I can at least say, perhaps this is why he was punished. Truly, I am not God and as such, I wouldn't know what everyone does. However, humanly speaking, from my relationship with him and how much time he sacrificed for me and many other people I know, this man was really really good. He would trek very long distance , just to impart knowledge into young ones. He sacrificed his comfort to make other people convenient. He was loved by everyone around him - at home, at work , at school... everywhere! I remember very well how glad he was when I made my O'level results. Pure excitement. He shared some of my best moments with me... When I got admission into the University for my first degree, when I got a scholarship for my M.Sc. His last message to me on facebook was "Keep on striving for excellence"
We have heard of cases where armed robbers kill innocent people. These good people die while the evil robbers live on; A drunkard decides to drive and end up killing an innocent school girl... These kind of stories are heart breaking!
Alone this moment in the confines of my room, I am still asking: "Why do the good ones die young and the evil ones refuse to die?" I am so sad right now.