Death comes quietly. It does not make noise. It does not warn you. It just comes and takes, and then it leaves behind a silence that never goes away. And after death, everything changes. A home that was once full of laughter becomes quiet. A chair stays empty. A plate stays untouched. A bed stays cold on one side. A mother cooks for one person less, but she still cooks too much, because her heart has not accepted that he is gone. A child still leaves a space at the table, because she believes her father will come back to sit there. A mother who buries her child never heals. She loses her sleep. She wakes up in the middle of the night and calls his name. She goes to the grave and talks to the soil, like her son can still hear her. She keeps his room the same. She keeps his clothes the same. Because if she moves anything, it will feel like he is really gone. People tell her to be strong, but how can a mother be strong when her heart is buried in the ground? A wife who loses her husband loses her best friend. She sleeps on one side of the bed, the other side empty. She hugs his shirt at night because it still smells like him. She hears a knock and runs to the door, thinking he has come back, but it is only the wind. She cries in the bathroom so her children will not see her tears. She becomes both mother and father, and nobody asks her how she is surviving. Children who lose a parent lose their childhood. They wait at the door every evening, saying daddy is coming. When darkness comes and daddy does not come, they cry themselves to sleep. The oldest pretends to be strong, but at night, he cries alone. The youngest still does not understand death. She still asks, when is daddy coming back from heaven? And no one has an answer. When a father dies, the money dies with him. School fees stop. Rent becomes a problem. Food becomes a problem. A mother who was once a wife becomes a beggar, moving from house to house, asking for help to feed her children. Children drop out of school. Dreams die. Not because they were lazy, but because death took the person who was paying for those dreams. A young girl, only twenty-two, had dreams. She wanted to grow old. She wanted to be a mother. She wanted to build a house for her mother. But death took her before she could finish. Her dreams died with her. Her books are still there. Her plans are still there. But she is gone. Death does not wait for you to finish your dreams. It takes you in the middle of your story. Death leaves us asking, what if? What if I had called? What if I had answered that last call? What if I had visited one more time? What if I had said I love you one more time? That last hug, and we did not know it was the last hug. That last message, we said, we will talk later, but later never came. And now we live with that guilt every day. After you lose someone, you become afraid. You become afraid to love again, because you know love can end in death. You become afraid when your phone rings at night, because you think it is another bad news. You become afraid to sleep, because you think someone else might die while you are sleeping. Death teaches you that tomorrow is not promised. But even in all this pain, death teaches us one thing: Love people now. Hug them now. Call them now. Tell them you love them now. Do not wait for tomorrow, because tomorrow is not promised. Today, they are here. Tomorrow, they could be gone. To all our beloved ones who have gone: You went and never returned. But we will never forget you. We still love you. We still miss you. We still cry for you. Rest in peace. We will meet again where there is no death, no pain, no sickness, no tears. #ripbelovedheroes #ripbelovedones #ripfrimpong #ripjesusdemiguel #engineerkasese - @engineer_kasese