Are there birthdays in heaven?
I used to wonder when people said they were celebrating post-humous birthdays, what exactly were they trying to say? Did angels bake cakes with celestial candles? Did those who had gone yonder care about birthdays since we only celebrate them in a weird countdown of our mortality? This strange thing where every year lived is like one more stick of survival in our life’s tally. I used to wonder how people got certainty that their loved ones were even on the bright side of eternity. Do they only say those things to feel better? How could they be so sure?
Can someone be gone and still here? Short answer, yes.
Do big days feel like a betrayal of the one you love? Especially when you hit milestones and reach for your phone to tell them before it hits you that their mailing address has been changed, permanently. Or worse, when you discover that a whole day went by without you thinking about them. The panic that comes with realising that you must make an active effort to keep them alive in your mind or this disease humans have, this timeless disease called forgetting will eat up every single memory like a hungry baby and a glob of pudding.
I was ecstatic when I discovered that my sister and Pwanedo Alson shared a birthday in 2010. I had met many other birthday mates like Fatima, Ummi and Kupi right from my Js1 but Naydo’s discovery felt extra special. The closer I got to her, the more I understood why. We were not meant to just meet in CCY, haduwan gate, rabuwan gate as was the popular saying — a saying for the temporary nature of relationships, describing that folks met at the gate, and will go their separate ways at the gate. In this case, our school gate. Naydo and I will go on to move from Jimeta, Yola, to Zaria Kaunda, Abuja, Unguwan Sunday in Kaduna, Jos and Lamurde, travelling and connecting across dotted lines, doing random things like buying bread at night to major things like trying out bridal dresses in different shops.
C.S. Lewis in A Grief Observed showed me how my art can help me process the chaos of loss and the tormenting throbbing of grief. Every day, we are reminded of our ‘otherworldliness’. We’re immortal beings dwelling in a frail and temporary jar of clay. We do not belong here. We were made for permanence. Even though I said it here that I have a fear of permanence, I think I have realised that I am more confident in the knowledge of the enduring permanence of the eternal. Even though this temporal world and its fusillade of uncertainties can taunt me, I have this great hope as an anchor for my soul.
I learnt to answer some of my questions about post-humous birthdays. Jesus said in the coming kingdom, there will be no marriage or giving into marriage. I take that cue to know that all such mortal practices will fade away. I imagine this beautiful girl, now a bride, reunited with her one true lover, caught in blissful delight, totally unaware of the passage of time. Sometimes, the movies and stories get the best of me and I imagine her looking down on us with a graceful smile, knowing much more than we could ever do while trapped in time. In all my imaginations, my confidence is in 1 Thessalonians 4:13–16
“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.”
I get threatened by grief sometimes. Like how I open The Study Room group chat and see her name. I dread the day WhatsApp will announce her account deactivation. I don’t know if I am mentally ready to attend any wedding yet. The last one was a nightmare. It is the little triggers like people randomly adding me to bridal WhatsApp groups — please don’t do that. But today, I choose to say happy birthday to this girl not because I am setting up a shrine but because I am choosing to celebrate the life we’ve shared. Until the Lord calls me home, my heart will always seek hers to dance with. And when it finds that hers has stopped thumping to the rhythms of life on this side, mine will break a little. But there’s balm in Gilead so Only Jesus for my pain.
I pray for you who is hurting with no outlet, may you find release and ease in the simple things. Free-flowing tears, wild strokes of paint on a canvas, neatly knitted sweaters, tear-stained pages with smeared ink or screens full of letters. I pray you find God in this pain. And that we learn to celebrate birthdays just like we do for Jesus. (That was supposed to be a joke but is it?)
Love, Ballie💖
