The pope, just like any other person, was a man, and that means he was mortal. But he was a man who led a very good life, one that touched many lives, those of the poor.
He was the modern Mother Teresa. He was a one man among millions with the heart of humanity. He has no equivalent in South Sudan, pardon my poor choice of words, I mean J.1.
The problem with good people is that they make the rest of us look very bad. But we all leave the world behind, with everything in it. Good and bad and travel very far away to a place of no return, where we will be judged, based on our earthly performances.
According to Jainism or the Hindu’s tradition that believes in rebirth after death, there are high chances that you may be reincarnated as a rat or cat (God forbid) if you were a very bad person on earth. You may return as an elephant or a cow and end up on someone’s farm, eating grass for lunch, breakfast, and supper before the owner eats you up. I pray that doesn’t happen because it is really going to be very bad.
For the Christian community, we believe that there is a special place, paradise, reserved for good people, and of course, hell, where the stubborn ones will serve a lifetime sentence in fire which burns to your soul. And if this hell is real, there is no doubt; heaven is going to be empty. I don’t know why but God must do a very good job of forgiving billions of people because we are all stubborn and it is not a matter of how or why because you will find it out for yourself when that time comes.
The end of man is also the end of his pain, worries, and the never-ending search for happiness. After getting sick in February, the pope was admitted in a hospital and was attended to by a group of well-trained medical professionals who performed medical examinations. During that time, his life was partially or entirely in the hands of those medics and not God because they were going to keep him in church and pray for his recovery there. But some things don’t need divine intervention, even a country’s problems, economic and political. It is yours to fix. God too will never put your broken pieces together. He can only give you the strength to do the work.
Just like any average human being, the pope had childhood dreams and he worked very hard to accomplish each one of them and I hope while on his deathbed, his regrets were not that much or maybe if he had one, it would be humanity’s collective failure to make the world a better place. Like the pope, your life is your own adventure and you can make a lot of mistakes, good and bad ones. Forget the fact that you are competing with anyone. It is not true.
Chase some dreams. Win and fail. There is no problem dreaming big. Date Beyoncé in your dreams and live. It is the only chance we have and it comes once.
That is why you are working hard, taking hard math classes to be an engineer so you can secure a better opportunity and change your economic situation or let me say, that of your family. It is the same reason why some young people would leave behind their loved ones and travel far away to look for better opportunities or to create some for themselves.
It is the search for happiness. Every human being wants to live a happy life but sometimes our own search doesn’t make us happy either because happiness is not a destination. It is a process. It is the little moments that we spend with family that really counts and not big days because it is a mirage. You know what I mean? You will never arrive.
No doubt, the pope has lived his life according to his job descriptions. He dedicated his whole existence, 80 years of his life to a noble cause but he lived through these years with the knowledge of the finish line, the day when his road ends, forever. What remains of him are his memories and the impacts, especially the change he has brought to the hurting world.
His end too is the mementos that the world doesn’t care that much about us because for one reason or another, the new Pope is going to assume his position and for this new man of God, he will even do better than Pope Francis. The same fate awaits each and every human, and it is the best and worst reminder that we are not the reason for the existence of this world.