A few months ago, on a call with Mum, I realised something I have been doing for quite some time. We were talking about food because people were starting to harvest their produce, and I mentioned how much I missed some Zambian food. I said I was looking forward to eating some of my favourite dishes, even though I did not know when I would next be in Zambia.

A few more sentences were exchanged, though I do not remember what they were. Then Mum, with the best of intentions, said, “We will see each other.”

Those five words.

As sweet and reassuring as they might be, those words are painful to me. They embody hurt, heartbreak and grief. They are the last words I remember Dad saying to me the last time I saw him. So each time someone, especially from back home, says them, my mind immediately makes that connection. Those words, intended to bring comfort and hope, end up piercing the depths of my heart, and I bleed. Someone promised me exactly that, and I never got to see him again. At least, not in the way I thought I would.

I genuinely struggle with understanding death. I have lost four people in the last three and a half years, but I still don’t get it. I don’t understand how someone can be here today and gone tomorrow. My struggle is not necessarily with the what or the why, but rather with what I can only describe as the how. I struggle with the thought that I will never see Dad again in the physical sense. That if and when I go back home, no matter how long I stay, I will never see that familiar face again. That I will never sit across from him so that we can talk or share a meal. I look at his pictures, and I just don’t get it. How is this man gone and never coming back? How?

With these struggles constantly at the back of my mind, thoughts of death are almost always present. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Death is inevitable. Knowing this can produce at least two responses. The first is to recognise the preciousness of life and to live with that reality in mind – that life is short, tomorrow is not promised and that today must be lived in light of that reality. The other response, perhaps the one in which I find myself more often than I should, is to close myself off. To avoid loving deeply. To avoid getting close to people. To prepare for people leaving by choosing to live alone in the first place. To never get too close because if you do, and those people leave, it hurts like hell.

“We will see each other” was never meant to be a guarantee. No one can make that promise because no one knows how many days we have left. I think it was meant to express a longing. Dad longed to see me when he said those words. Mum longs for the same. I too longed to see Dad, and my heart longs to see Mum and my siblings. I long to see my family and friends.

At the same time, I know that some of the people I long to see, I will never see again. And it is not just about other people leaving. One day, it will be me. I will be the one closing my eyes in death.

So perhaps the only guarantee we have is this: the desire to be with the people we love forever will never be fully satisfied on this side of eternity because death is certain. But the conversation does not end there. It cannot. C. S. Lewis said, “If we find ourselves with a desire that nothing in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that we were made for another world.” There is another world where this longing is finally satisfied.

So, as I sit here, I tell myself that it is okay to have this desire. That it is okay to open up and be close to people. That some people will leave, and it is going to hurt like nothing else. That there are tears reserved for me for this very purpose. That my heart will be pierced and shattered into small pieces. That this desire will never be fully quenched on this side of eternity – it was never meant to be.

More importantly, I whisper to myself that there is another world where this desire will be satisfied. Where the promise of “we will see each other” is fulfilled. Where I’ll get to see my dad and everyone who has gone before me in Christ.

Until then, I need to run my race and oh to run well.

So my prayer, as expressed by one of my favourite theologians, is:

“God, when that day comes, grant by your grace that I might die well. Grant by your grace that I may be ushered into your presence believing you as sincerely as I believed you on the day of my greatest victory and my greatest deliverance. No, no, no, God, more so. More so.”