Regina Kizza: Suffered and died innocently

I lost my little sister, Regina Kizza. The immediate family struggled with their nest of disease, but failed. She died on July 27, 2017 and was buried on July 29, 2017. She was in the hospital for five months. The hospital became her residence along with many other patients with different illnesses that were also staunch threats to Regina’s immune system. Medicine was Regina’s food and often interrupted her real mealtime.

Additionally, the two primary caregivers were struggling to deal with the hospital flu and hostile weather conditions that have been constant for much of this year. The deadly flu infection greatly interfered with the course of care and at that time signs were visible that the lead patient, Regina, would soon leave the race for life.

In fact, not even the oxygen machine that was brought in to help her breathe resurrected her to live again. The simple life came to an end and the news of his passing was too bitter to accept. The five months in the hospital that were spent restoring Regina’s life were unsuccessful. Death was the only answer we would get. It happened and it couldn’t be ignored. Denial, anger, and regret could not change the natural event that she had rested from the infinite misery of infinite combinations of afflictions.

The trust given to the doctors could not help and blaming the health system was useless. The best we could do was give Regina a decent send-off with all the love. Despite her loss, life had to go on. All the family could do better was unite strongly against life’s challenges, thrive, and share happiness with others.

I am still recovering from her loss just two months later. Death was like a joke to me until we lost Regina, a big part of my life and a powerful reason why I worked so hard to accommodate her in a more prosperous and homelike environment. His death threw me miles far behind my previous stage in life. It showed me how life means nothing after the loss of a loved one, when there is nothing to glorify, to be proud of, or to fight hard for. It was a time when mental disability would ensue permanently if the grieving time was not handled well.

I have lost a relative before, heard and ‘understood’ the essence of death from childhood. I have also read about events that led to death and had visual experiences. In general, death has never been true and justifiable for me like when my sister Regina died. Even the comfort of friends and guarantees were never convincing. A Rastafarian friend, Bongobingiman Gumarutahigwa Ruhinda, sent me an encouraging message: “Our birth is not the beginning and death is not the end. Life goes on.”

Regina’s death was the biggest challenge of my life and one to deal with. Despite having talked about life after death, my sister’s death strongly justified why I needed to better understand death and life afterwards, to see the situation of my sister, whose life I fought hard to save (5 months) and I failed. It was a long time of pain for her, which was also felt by the caregivers.

From the city to the countryside where the family lived, I always knew who to find first and with whom to build peace and happiness. That was no longer possible. I chose to make his bed my own to experience his spiritual presence. At some point I felt that the climate was very hotelier and I wondered if it was responsible for the chronic respiratory condition that I suffered to death. I kept asking similar questions and blaming myself for not getting home early enough to protect her.

Really the prolonged pain until his death was very painful and degrading for the lives of the living. He lived innocently in emotional, psychological, physical and sociocultural pain since childhood. His biggest disappointment was never having lived a normal and satisfying life; Get moving, go play, make friends, work and support others. She was disabled for reasons other than her own and innocently experienced pain and death throughout her life. A Buddhist priest and friend of mine took a moment to reflect on life and said, “Yes, sometimes I shudder at the thought of so much suffering. The monks in India are so vulnerable. We have no help at hand. We are left to ourselves. luck”. mercy. “

Life seemed so meaningless then; As if there was nothing to fight for, nothing to be pleasant about, and nothing to live for but pain and death! Both that, living life happily and miserably, were met with sickness and death. In fact, the truth about the world I lived in was difficult to assimilate, even when it seemed clearer to me. But Kitasaala Sarah, a mother I met as a teenager in the Jinja district of Uganda, repeated it to me. She said, “We are mortal. Very vulnerable to death, but what matters a lot is the kind of life you have lived. We all need to enjoy our stay on earth.”

Every time my thoughts quickly returned to misery in the last days of Regina’s life, I experience pain. At times I felt that I should have done more to reduce her suffering so that she could live longer. He lived miles away, caught up in routines to survive in the city. And when I showed up, it was too late to stop the misery and painful death. It was out of my control.

Doctors in the environment full of deficiencies in health care, also failed. Care and attention in public facilities was very limited. Collaboration between referral hospitals on modes of treatment was non-existent and the location of medical facilities highly questionable. One facility, Kiruddu, was near Lake Victoria with numerous mosquito-infested swamps around it and faced frequent water shortages. The neighborhood viewed the facility negatively as a death trap. But for me, death became such a huge issue to solve.

Death was so daring for the very determined and strong as to stop it. He just walked in and took the life of the loved one that we love so much and strive to protect day and night. I and the rest of the family are left powerless, only to give up without a choice.

It is at this time that I meditated most on life and death. At the same time I admitted the fact that we now live only to die another day; life was such a fragile and fragile state that it easily vanished despite fierce efforts to protect it; life was a transit phase of our existences from birth; Dying was a natural design and by nature we will all die.

Death was the end of life that awaits everyone. We can’t do anything about it. Nothing better or less we can do to overcome death. It is a pending event for all to find, regardless of the pain in which we remain in the face of the loss of a loved one. Death is a universal phenomenon as noted by Ratana Nanda Bhante, a Burmese Buddhist scholar in Sri Lanka:

“… and in fact it also makes me more reflective about life [you] are having now. But all his universal phenomena are supposed to decay, they are supposed to end with death. This is the call[ed] Dhamma niyama- means rules of nature. I think, you could also feel. So I have no words to give you, to feel comfort[able]. “

‘Dhamma niyama’ is worth keeping in mind as I analyze the painful loss of my sister and rebuild life again.

Because whatever we do, we do it for life, as it ends soon. And it is better to be good because goodness nourishes life more than bad actions that frustrate it. In a way, the death of a loved one is a learning opportunity: through death we realize and develop the powerful divine truth of life. The Buddhist text brings that to light in Dhammapada 129-130, which stipulates that “all beings fear death, all love life, so who can you hurt, what wrong can you do?”

For both Christians and positive psychologists, whatever negative events happen, there are special insights and good reasons for them to occur. In fact, times were getting so harsh and hostile for the survival of the rest of the family that Regina completely trusted. Our mother, the primary caregiver, became ill around the same time that Regina’s conditions worsened and we had run out of funds. More distant relative could not help. A Christian friend, Golyan Emma, ​​gave me spiritual energy when she said, “Well, you have to be strong because sometimes we are put to the test and God has a reason why certain things happen.”

Now I understand what it means to lose a loved one. As I await my own last moment and the end of my life, I tell you, my sister, Regina, “You lived innocently in pain and died for reasons that were not your fault. Your vulnerability deserved better and more sustainable support from family and society. community. Unfortunately, the world had become a sophisticated place for all of us, so much so that you could not cope as much as your family. You will always have the deepest love from us and a great presence in our lives. This will guide us to live Better. Live, in a world full of adversaries. Rest in peace. “

The humble family of the late Regina Kizza hopes to host a Regina Kizza memorial conference and community events to draw lessons from her life, strengthen the family’s capacity to live and overcome the socio-economic challenges that failed Regina’s sustained support, and start a foundation for helping poor families effectively care for disabled members, a life Regina lived for 31 years. We hope that friends and supporters will join us in this arduous task and show compassion, kindness and goodwill to family and other vulnerable people fighting for their lives, the best legacy we only have when life ends.