Life, and I mean this life, is forever an enigma. It remains a complete mystery to me when, for example, a child looses his or her life. We do sometimes try and explain it and try and find comfort in God’s word. However, to the bereaved, sometimes the circumstance is such that no matter how hard one tries to explain it there is always that simple, yet loaded question, “why?” Why should an innocent child die when hardened criminals walk this life free? I asked the question “why” over and over again when I lost my husband some six years ago. At a point, I thought everyone around me including family and trusted friends were all against me. They did not feel my pain that was why repeatedly they kept telling me things like I should give it to God and that “he was a gift from God and He had found it fit to call him home.” Then I read Harold S. Kusher’s book, “When Bad Things Happen to Good people”. Things began to sink in and I had to swallow the hard truth of life. A couple of weeks ago, I was at one of the most moving funerals I have so far attended in my life. It was the funeral of not an older person or somebody who had been ill for sometime. It was the funeral of a bubbly young girl, just 16 years old and who did not fall sick for even a day. As the cold stiff body laid in the coffin before us in the Church, the question that came to my mind one more time was why does something as devastating as death happen to an innocent school child? Why should death rob the family of a life they were investing in at such a prime time in her life? And why should she be taken away from her friends at such age? I had overheard consoling comments from some of the sympathizers to family members. There were comments to the effect that “it is part of God’s plan for the family”. Others, including myself, comforted the family with the usual saying, “it is God who gives and it is He who takes away.” I got reminded of some of the numerous words of consolation that I received when I was confronted with my loss. In the midst of all that, my mind also went back to the author, Harold Kushner, who was faced with his own child’s fatal illness. In his book, he tried to comfort as he gave his own perspective on how people can better deal with the evil that enters their lives at some point. As I reflected on the book and a couple of devastated life examples in the Bible, I could not help reaching for my handkerchief. Looking at the school children, boys and girls, who came with their teachers to bid the deceased farewell, my eyes were welled up. One could see genuine loss in their mourning. They succeeded in moving a lot of people to shedding a tear or two. Being the first funeral I have ever attended for a young person of that age, I was moved by a simple ritual performed by the class teacher. It was to formally delete the deceased’s name from the class as well as the school’s registers. The rite perhaps also added to the solemnity of the occasion and caused even more tears to flow from both the children and some of the adults in the Church’s auditorium. With both registers in her hand, the teacher came up to the podium to do a roll call of her class as perhaps she does every morning. In some order, she started calling the names of the children in the register. From the floor, one after the other, the children would respond “present” as they heard their names called out. It got to the turn of the deceased. The teacher called her name once and there was dead silence. As if the deceased did not hear her name, the teacher called a second time this time raising her voice a little louder than normal. There was no response. The Church was so quiet that one could have heard a needle drop on the floor. Then in a little more raised voice, the teacher called the name of the deceased a third time. This time, one of the children got up and in a sombre voice responded, “Please Madam, she is dead.” The teacher broke down as she symbolically crossed the deceased’s name out from the registers. All the children in unison burst out crying uncontrollably and so did some adults in the Church. It was a touching scene. As the pall bearers moved in to take the coffin out at the end of the memorial service, the wailing of the children got even louder as they lined up with their hands lifted to say good-bye to their departed colleague who, only a few weeks ago, they were perhaps having fun with together at school. Outside, as they displayed her Physical Education (PE) kit on her coffin, ready to be moved into a waiting hearse for the cemetery, there was a bit of a drama. Perhaps the reality then dawned on them. The moving tears and gestures as if to hold the coffin back was a touching farewell well enacted for their friend. Tears rolled down in thicker drops. Many felt their pain. Even the hardest of hearts would have been moved. Not even the sweet chorus: “Angels of Jesus, angels of light singing to welcome the pilgrim of the night”, sang with angelic voices, could wipe away the tears of the school children gathered. The 16 year old girl was truly gone forever. Her life had been truncated by the cruel hands of death. From the testimonies of her family, teacher and young class mates, she was a gem, a bubbly young lady and a valuable member of her class. Why was she being called at this early age? Why her? Why should such a traumatizing experience happen to the family and her friends? I guess that is the point where one is tempted to ask the question, why do bad things happen to good people? The answer cannot be explained by any mortal being no matter how much research and science we avail ourselves to. That is the mystery of life and the comfort is in the words that we are all accustomed with: “God gives and God takes away”. When it hurts most, those are the words in which one finds succour. Vicky Wireko Reality Zone With Vicky Wireko vickywirekoandoh@yahoo.com