Dear Editor,
In the midst of life there is death, and these past few weeks have felt like a classroom where grief keeps calling. Loss has surrounded me from every side: family members, people in my community, the passing of a public figure, and even someone I had never met. All of it landed at once, opening a floodgate of questions I cannot ignore. My first encounter with grief came at eight, when my grandfather died. My family says I was the only grandchild who truly grew up with him, yet I remember little of his life, only the emptiness left in his absence. That kind of hollowness engraves itself on you. Years later, I lost my sister. I thought I had learnt how to grieve by then, but with each loss that followed, I began to realise grief never stops teaching.
Death is final. There are no redos, no refunds, no negotiations, only a sudden and irrevocable yes to eternity. And yet life never pauses. Children still have to go to school, bills demand to be paid, and dinner must be cooked. The world moves on, indifferent to the deaths that shake us, large or small. That indifference feels unbearable when faced with the fragile brevity of our allotted time. It brings to mind the parable of the sower: seeds scattered along the path are eaten by birds, seeds on rocky ground wither for lack of root, seeds among thorns are choked, and seeds on good soil yield abundantly. We are much like that soil. Two people born at the same moment may grow in drastically different directions, shaped by nurture, education, trauma, and grace. One life might radiate boldness and transformation; another might remain a dim echo of what could have been.
What unsettles me most is this: what happens when we assume we have time? When we grow comfortable, leaving no space for the Still Small Voice that calls us deeper. When prayer becomes self-serving and our days revolve around ease. That kind of living is its own slow death. A tree left untended rots from within, its bark flaking, its branches withering until it can bear nothing. The soul neglected shares the same fate.
I do not write from morbidity but from urgency. Loss reminds us that breath alone is not proof of purpose. We are given seasons, but some will end before we even recognise their worth.
So let us live with intention. Make room for the Spirit. Speak the words that matter. Seek reconciliation where possible. Lean into the quiet callings that tug at your heart. Choose to do the small things that suggest a larger life.
Death’s finality is terrifying and yet clarifying. If we allow it, grief will refine the questions we ask and sharpen the lives we choose. And in that fire of clarity, may we choose well.
I am,
DeAnna Stephens, MSHS, CISM