Celebrate life

NATASJA BEYLEVELD WRITES:

The heart stops working on the day chosen prior to your birth.

11am on the 22nd of February 2015, the morning of my daughter’s 2nd birthday. The 2nd July 2021, my son’s 11th birthday. Two significant dates; the death of my father, and my husband’s final farewell.

The heart of a grieving mother is fierce, and divinely protected. She is as strong as the angels and humans that surround and support her family. Keep that in mind when you have a grieving friend or family member.

God humbles His children, and we acknowledge Him as creator, giver, taker, friend, and our Man with the ultimate plan. Does it have to make sense in the moment? The unveiling of ‘why’ takes time. It does make sense at the very end. The small moments, the final words, the last hug, the reappearing memories.

The only ‘why’ that matters at the end, is to be kind, to love wholeheartedly, to forgive, to embrace, and to celebrate life even in the face of death. You’re going to make glorious mistakes, and your puzzle will shatter every now and then.

You know what really eases off the devil? When we praise God amidst turmoil, when we surrender into the ‘why’.

There really is no room for ego, pride, macho-man, superwoman, or being a celebrity when you exit the world the way you entered it (naked and afraid). Perhaps some babies are born happy, and some old dude happily breathes out his last mile - but with reason, I’m sure.

If you capture this moment, evaluate, and ask three simple questions. Where is my heart at? What matters most? And why, why life?

It’s something we all share, it’s something we can’t buy or copy and paste, and it’s something we all need to experience for ourselves. The only difference is what we choose to do with the experiences.

Will it bury you? Will it make you hide like Adam and Eve?

Will it define you? Will you pity behind it? Will you become a slave to it?

Or will you start by getting up in the morning. Mourning. The rock and roll of emotions where you’re broken, extremely sad, or angry as $*&# for no particular reason. Then numb, then ‘trying’ and then it’s just you and ‘this moment’.

It becomes little moments in a moment leading you back into life again. Like a horse being tamed to a new environment, because you are just never the same again, only better. You adapt, or you become the ashes that settle on any platform, rather than spreading wings to fly again.

There is a reason why we love the stories where Oprah gets people to cry and share their ‘me’. It’s because in a way; it’s the ‘us'. Its parts of your own ‘me’.

In our happiest, and in the darkest hour – we were made to love above all else. Love conquers all, even when you are at war with yourself.

Today I am simply asking someone reading this, to please make peace not war. Be selfless and become free of the labels the world wants to put on you.

I’m not a divorced widow. I’m a child that lost her father, and a mother that lost her best friend and father of her children.

I am a confident woman in business and my social life, and a loving nurturer (and feeder). I love people. I love to cook, and I love the life God breathed into us. It’s borrowed, and the people we love are borrowed to us.

I am thankful that we have so much, and that we can share and care about others.

I am thankful for great friends and family.

Ironic, but Gerhard’s last words to me was ‘you saved my life’. After that I held him in Katutura hospital until they incubated him, I cried like a baby amidst the crowd in the emergency unit. Everyone shared their sorrow in their eyes.

Dad’s last words were ‘you’re a great mother and I’m proud of you’. The next day I went to identify him at the police station.

At the very end; God knows what to say.

So, listen. Be still, and think about the ‘why’ kindly, considerately, humbly.