Death, be not proud

“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not soe, For, those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee. From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee, Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee doe goe, Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie. Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell, And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well, And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then? One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally, And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.” How best do I start writing this week if not to mourn with the families of those people who lost their lives in the ill-fated Dana plane crash? I was at home that evening watching the Diamond Jubilee anniversary celebration when my phone beeped. It was a BB messenger, a newsflash from a friend announcing a plane crash. I didn’t take it seriously at first until more updates started coming in. CNN and BBC were broadcasting it. It was also running on the news bars of both stations. I changed the channel to see what our local TV stations had to say about it, but I was disappointed to discover they were showing other programmes. I logged on to my Facebook page only to see a posting which stated that Levi Ajuonoma, NNPC’s group general manager, was involved. I was pained beyond measure. Levi was a member of my church. He used to attend service in the company of his wife. I could recall vividly the day he gave testimony in church after he got his job as NNPC’s spokesperson. I knew Levi as a presenter on NTA in those days. If you know what I mean, presenting a programme on TV as an independent producer means you may be struggling to make ends meet. It only comes with fame but no money. So when Levi got the job, he was happy and it meant fortune had indeed smiled on him. His ‘fall down and die’ prayers were not in vain. Since he moved to Abuja, I only saw him occasionally in church. Only to hear that Sunday evening that he was no more! One of our columnists, Nkiru Olumide-Ojo, got me thinking about the whole incident again after reading through her piece for the week. She knew someone on the crashed aircraft. Her friend’s husband was on board. She had taken many safety courses while working as a communications manager with some airline herself. I could not help but ask her if she thought she would remember to take any of those safety measures when the plane was about to crash. I had taken a course on airline safety but I don’t think I would have been able to do anything at that time because the fear of death wouldn’t have let me. The confusion and pandemonium in the aircraft would have taken over. The nearest exit would not have crossed anyone’s mind. Even if you make an attempt to open the door, the plane hasn’t landed and you don’t know where you are headed. Like Nkiru said, only God knows what was going on in the minds of those passengers when the plane was in trouble. What else can I do but remember the above poem, a sonnet written by John Donne in England around the year 1618 for those who died during the World Wars. It is one sonnet I love, and it’s one of nineteen that are part of a collection entitled ‘The Holy Sonnets’. The poem exemplifies the popular Christian philosophy of the period that heaven is eternal. John Donne starts the poem using the figurative language of personification, ‘Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not soe.” In using this technique, the author is able to apply human qualities which make Death tangible and a being with which the narrator can entertain an argument and eventually win his case based upon Christian philosophy. Through the use of personification and irony, John Donne has set the stage for death to become just as undone as any man. The sonnet shows that rest and sleep are nothing but pictures of death, an image of what death is, and that they provide much pleasure so that when death actually does happen, the pleasure will be much greater. And I do hope the pleasure is indeed greater for those who died. I do hope they are resting somewhere in the Lord’s bosom, even though they departed unexpectedly. Adieu to them all!