BrianJBecker.com

Last night as I drove home from work they appeared to be setting up for a big event at the house two doors down from our office. I assumed someone was throwing a big dance party. I turned the other way out the gate and drove around the block.

This morning as I drove to work I drove down the road past that house without thinking twice. I rolled slowly right through the wake that was still in progress… right past the neighbor in his casket. OOPS. Nobody seemed to mind, but OOPS still.

Growing up in the USA, death was rare and strange. In Southern California it almost didn’t exist. People tended to have memorial services instead of funerals and cemeteries were well hidden from view, some probably were paved over with condominiums awhile back. Even the elderly in general were seldom seen out and about, they aren’t as respected and listened to like they ought to be. So Cal markets itself to the young and over-active, and to the middle-aged trying to pretend they are young – medicating and sculpting themselves to cheat away old age. I think they even ship elderly people inland. Some have stuck around in Orange County, but again they are playing a funny role. You’ll see them at the swanky malls in spike heels, big old designer sunglasses and day-glow suntans.

Here in Congo, if the elders are sparse it’s because of war and disease. The life expectancy is hovering at about 40. It’s hard to fathom until you live here for awhile and you start to sense death all around. In the last year I’ve been handed at least six death certificates for HOPE clients. A pastor I know lost a young child, so did a HOPE staff member in Kinshasa. Just recently a staff member here in Kisangani lost his mother to something that would have probably been treatable elsewhere and another staff member lost his older brother who’d already lost his wife – the children are completely orphaned.

Now somewhere in all of this there must be a balance. The society I was raised in seems to abhor aging and the society I live in just hopes to live long enough to earn some wrinkles. Southern California seems to avoid death and Central Africa is inundated with it. Clearly dying is a part of life and though I am thankful for that potent lesson, I’d like to see fewer people getting short shrift, especially those kids.