Saying goodbye to someone you love...
(Feb Issue)

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal… Love leaves a memory no one can steal. Just before Christmas my uncle passed away. It’s funny how getting that kind of news puts everything in perspective, especially when you’re rushing around worrying about presents and what food to buy for
Christmas.
 
Suddenly you get that kind of news and all those things don’t seem so important anymore whether you’re having lovo or roast for Christmas lunch. It suddenly doesn’t matter whether or not you’ll be able to buy a
present for this or that person.   One moment you’re busily going about
your day and then you hear that someone you love dearly is gone.
 
It is a shock to the system to realise that you will literally never be
able to speak with that person ever again – not in this life anyway. Your
brain starts rationalising that maybe, just maybe, a horrible mistake
has been made or that someone is playing a sick joke. But no, eventually the realisation hits that the news is true. The person is gone, gone beyond the veil.
To hear your mother keening over the death of her brother is one of the most heartbreaking sounds in the world. To see the face of your grandmother when she is told that her youngest child has been snatched away from her is one of the hardest things to see. To tell the members of your family scattered all over Fiji and the world that one they loved has passed is one of the hardest things
to do. But you endure! You do it. I thought all that was hard but it got harder that same day, in the afternoon,
when I went with my aunt to visit her husband.
 
To see a wife frantically smoothing her husband’s hair and making sure his T-shirt is pulled down properly, softly saying his name over and over like a litany of disbelief,   that broke me. I found myself getting angry and railing against a God who saw nothing wrong with grabbing a loving husband and father of three beautiful children and
taking him from them.
 
A man of faith who I can honestly say was one of the few people I know who deserves to be called a Christian. It was just too much. Too unfair, that someone who did not smoke, did not drink anymore and was fit should be struck down. What is this plan we keep on getting told about?
 
This wonderful master plan of yours. Why would you do this to my aunt? Why would you do this to his children? I had just met my uncle the day before he passed and he was his usual self. Joking, making smart comments as I tried to choke him for his Marist Old Boys badge. How come I’m suddenly standing in the morgue looking at him so still? How
did this happen? All this running through my head as I stood there looking at the shell of what used to be my uncle. The spirit that was the essential HIM was no longer there. That’s when I calmed down as I remembered a quote I once read by the Danish author and poet Hans Christian Anderson: “A human life is a story told by God.” The Maker makes and the Maker takes. Blessed be the name of the Maker.
 
For whatever reason, my uncle was called back to the One who made him. The One who made all of us but no one is truly ever gone as long we keep their memory alive.And that was a comforting thought. I see my uncle in my mind
and I see him in his children, in their features and in their mannerisms.  I see him doing good things, I see him doing not-so-good things. I see him happy, I see him sad. Angry sometimes.
Full of jokes and full of love. I see my uncle in all his human flaws and for me, that is a kind of nobility that no one, not even the angels, can achieve.
 
Thank you Uncle Freddy, thank you for the memories. We miss you. We love you. We remember you always. I thank my God each time I think of you! And when I pray for you, I pray with joy.

Alex Elbourne is the Breakfast Show host on Legend FM