The terrible pain of being alone, suffering & anxious:

Personal chronicles & reflections:

I am still on the healing journey following the death of my younger brother in April 2024.

I accepted the reality of his demise following about seven months of illness. Since i believe in an ever merciful, almighty and loving God, I always pray to Him to have mercy on my bro’s soul and consider more importantly the good he did rather than the wrongs he did when he lived and since He is my Father, i believe He hears my prayers and will continue resting his soul in peace.

I somehow accepted his death (though I had prayed and wished he would get healed for the family and for him to have a testimony on God’s healing power and for him to also enjoy a second chance in life) seeing that the terrible suffering he had gone through had eventually ended and he was no longer in pain.

I am also relieved that he is no longer here on earth sad, lonely, suffering and anxious. I know that, like all sick people, he was anxious to get well and be back on his feet.

.. Evidently, i could discern that he was also anxious that he would at last ably swallow saliva and food and regain his strength and health..

He was anxious that he would be back on his feet and move around, interact with his friends and family and also paint walls as he was so fond of doing and also visit his social places and especially to watch football. Yet he did not make and God almighty rested him.

“I tried to swallow some water and I couldn’t,” is one of the statements that he made, evidently very bothered, as he explained his situation to me one evening. It is a statement that I will remember for a long time.

And as the time progressed, it was so much painful that he could not swallow even saliva, a thing we take for granted, and he had to struggle to spit it out every few minutes to overcome the discomfort of its accumulation in his throat.

This reality definitely robbed him of his peace and even moments when he could comfortably sleep.

Yet it was during his very last moments that i really felt the immense and evidently weighty pain of loneliness, suffering and anxiety which he was carrying all along like majority of all human beings evidently do during their last days.

During such moments, the suffering person does not care whether there is someone keeping him or her company. At such moments, food is not important any more. It does not matter whether the lights are on or whether it is dark…

… Being bedridden and all too weak to even turn the body, perhaps all that such a person thinks about is whether he or she will get healed or even awake the next moment. Perhaps such a person does not really care about anything in life at all.

Perhaps, these are the unfathomable pre-death moments that only God can unfathom. We, living human beings, can only guess and wonder as to what happens during these deeply intense moments when nothing really seems to matter to the sick or injured suffering persons.

From my observations, this must be totally lonely, desperate and anxious moments that must also be so very painful, psychologically or physically or otherwise, seeing that the sick has reached a point of total hopelessness and helplessness. We can only wonder goes on in the suffering persons mind and soul…