A world without Susan

- A testimonial on the world of Kasisi children’s Home

There are places we walk to, not because we want to be there, but because our inner humanity draws us there. And there are worlds we come to belong, not because we belong, but because those in these worlds welcome us with heavenly grace. We come to dwell in these worlds, and we come to find in them a sanctuary of our troubled lives.

In our despair, troubles, and in our fear of losing our inner humanity, these worlds come to be a home in which we find love and understanding. But above all, it is in these worlds that we find inspiration and meaning to our existence. And that meaning, I have come to learn is simply a living cenotaph of what our inner humanity should be. Love of our fellow human beings. A love graced by God.

A love beyond words of tongue and pen.

Yes, a love that hangs timelessly in the starlit dark night during the nightmares of our despair, troubles and fears.

Through a calling that for years now, there are some that have tried in vain to understand and reason why they walked into such worlds. Looking back, they have no regrets that they did, even though sometimes it has hurt their social and professional relationships. Infatuation, obsession, are words many have come to use in their infantile attempt to understand why there are some that walk into such worlds and end up belonging.

What many of them do not understand is that we do not live our lives for ourselves. Our lives belong to God and all that he created in his image. And when we walk into worlds apart from ours, and in which we find inspiration, love and understanding, we should understand that our lives become a greater meaning beyond our fascination with ourselves.

We can not be, without being in another. Our world has no meaning if we do not listen to our inner humanity, for our inner humanity always dwells in worlds apart from us.

Yesterday, November 16, 2011, I attended a seraphic and melancholic burial service for Susan. It was unlike any other burial service, I have ever attended. There were no dressed up men and women in black. No loudly mourning women. No fancy long luxury car procession. And no expensive hearse carrying an expensive coffin. No open grave with marquees and chairs. No preacher men howling heavenly damnation on us.

And, yes. No somebodies, nobodies and jackanapes wanting to be remembered that they attended the burial service. In all the multitudes of somebodies, nobodies and jackanapes that attend many a funeral I have been to, only a smattering attends because their inner humanity drew them to the departed. For most it is merely a routine social ritual of “paying their respect”. “Paying ones respect”, is an adage I am yet to find meaning for.

Susan’s burial service was different. It was orphic, for Susan dwelled in a world apart from most of us. A world in which to most, our ability to dwell in our inner humanity is simply a delusion of our times of assumed understanding of the love of God.

As I watched the mother-provincial say the last prayers, and the children lay flowers on Susan’s small grave, I looked into the yonder blue skies with melancholic deference. I never knew I was so privileged to have happened to be in this world again.

In reminiscent moments of Susan’s world, I recalled the times Susan would smile at me in recognition. I recalled how in other lonely times and wishful longings, I would tell myself that tomorrow I will tell Susan to talk to me, stand up and walk with us. There were times, I thought of myself as having powers beyond humanity. And there was always the dream, that with God’s grace and the love in Susan’s world, tomorrow she will surely walk with us.

All her life, Susan did not talk, walk with us, nor did Susan ran and play with us. But Susan dwelled in a world that loved, cherished, and nurtured her. The inner humanity that dwells in her world, shone down on her like candlelight in a stormy dark rainy night. Sometimes, I think Susan beamed with an understanding and love that should surely draw us to realise that she was not asking for more.

Susan was happy.

In hindsight, it is me that is not happy, not Susan. Susan dwelled in a serene world, a celestial palimpsest of an inner humanity which many can not touch. My dreams of having Susan walk and run with us, were merely a futile aspiration of thinking my world is the world Susan also desired. How it be, I could be so wrong.

Indeed, how it be, I could no decipher the eternal meaning of children laying flowers on an unmarked small grave? How it be, I did not read in Susan’s smile that her world is as the world should be.

Yes, a world where our despair, troubles and fears dwell not in the sanctity of our inner humanity. That unknowingly we parade our despair, troubles and fears like clowns in a carnival, merely serves to enhance our inability to walk with the angels. Indeed, the parade merely serves to reflect our unreasoned fear of walking into better worlds.

Susan’s world is a world we can not live apart. It is our world. For Susan did not come from a God apart from us. Susan, like us, is a child of God, and her world is how our world should be.

Tomorrow, as we walk and run with those we so proclaim to love, let us know that if yesterday we did not dwell in Susan’s world, then we dwell not in the sanctity of God. We are merely a delusion of the inner humanity that God so bestowed on us.

To all those that came before me, and those that shall come after me, I call unto your inner humanity to realise that there can never be a world without Susan.

Susan is us, and may her soul rest in everlasting peace.