The quiet balance of life

Today, I celebrated a life and mourned another. The irony of it all how one person rejoices at the gift of being born, surrounded by laughter and love, while elsewhere another is being wept for, their absence echoing through the hearts that once held them dear. Today was both joyful and sorrowful or perhaps, more truthfully, deeply reflective.

I didn’t know the person who passed away. I only attended the funeral because they were related to my friend. Yet, standing there, I came face to face with the quiet brutality of life the kind that I’ve only witnessed from the sidelines. The image of a woman losing her husband, a mother losing her children’s father. I looked around at my friends and saw pieces of us reflected in the late man’s children standing there, holding their mother as she spoke of the man she once loved. I was only three when my father died; I barely remember his face, his voice, or the world as it was then. And for context, most of my friends also lost their fathers when they were far too young to understand what loss really meant.

I didn’t want to make this tragedy about me. I simply wanted to understand this man through the stories of his friends and the words of his wife how she described him as present, gentle, and devoted partner and father. But somehow, I couldn’t help thinking of my own father. The things I know of him are secondhand stories owned by others, memories that don’t quite belong to me. I didn’t know either of them, yet somehow, they were the same, both are now absent, left early and loved deeply.

The truth is, I have no philosophy death after this. I don’t know what to tell someone who is trying to make sense of it. Should I say, live life fully, because tomorrow is never promised? Because this man, mind you, was preparing to celebrate ten years of marriage with his wife. There were plans beautiful, ordinary plans for a shared moment that they never knew would now never come. On the very day he died, she had only wanted them to spend it together as a family.

Perhaps the lesson is this: celebrate when you can, because you never truly know what waits beyond the next moment or day. People often repeat those phrases “Tell your loved ones you love them,” “Forgive while you can,” “Live life to the fullest.” And we roll our eyes because they sound like tired clichés. But at some point, clichés become truths we only understand too late. Still, what about the days when you simply cannot? When you have no energy to reach out, no peace to forgive, no spark to celebrate or even enjoy life? And what if, on some days, there is neither the reason nor the means to do any of it?

Death steals from us in ways we can’t anticipate, and we have no control over its choosing. I’ll probably forget the heaviness of today in a week or so, but I hope I never forget how sudden death is. I hope that when courage or opportunity finds me, I’ll choose to live fully, imperfectly even when I have no idea how it will unfold.

Remember how I said I celebrated a life today? That life belongs to my friend. She turned a year older, and for the first time since I’ve known her, I saw her slow down, truly savoring the day instead of racing past it. That alone brought me joy. So today, I witnessed both joy and pain life in its raw, unscripted balance.

Honestly, I don’t want to hold on to pain right now. I don’t want grudges or bad memories. I don’t want to see my mother carry her sorrow when I’m there to hold it with her. I don’t want to do wrong. I don’t want to complain about my day. I just don’t want to carry anything heavy anymore. I know I can only do so much, but I hope that whatever small good I manage will help me live better. And when my time comes, I hope to leave peacefully and that those I leave behind will feel that peace too.

I don’t even want to go too deep into what I felt about my faith today, but I questioned it. I questioned how these people, who had prayed so faithfully that their children would never be orphaned, now stood facing their worst fear. Yet, somehow, the man’s brother restored a piece of my faith when he said, “We want to blame God for taking you, but He’s the same one who gave you to us.” And maybe that’s what I’ll hold on to for now – the reminder that before there was loss, there was love, and the privilege and joy of having known it.

So, I see today not as a lesson, but as a reflection a quiet reminder that grief and gratitude co-exist, and that perhaps the truest way to live is to hold space for both.

Anonymous, Rwanda, October 2025

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