WHY PEOPLE SAY "BLESS YOU" AFTER SNEEZING

Growing up in a Christian home, I often heard my mum say “bless you” after sneezing. I realized nothing was said after coughing or burping but only sneezing. Some days ago I was in physiology experiment class and the teacher sneezed. A student quickly replied “bless you”.

 This teacher was obviously Chinese and for a moment I wondered if he understood why she said “bless you”. Right then I realized I didn't know what that phrase really meant and why it was said after sneezing.

We now know that sneezing is a reflex action and is most often the sign of something relatively benign, such as a cold or allergy. A sneeze also can be provoked by being outside in the sunlight or from smelling a strong odour. Still, we persist in the custom of saying "bless you" mainly out of habit and common courtesy.

 Some cultures have similar response to sneezes, believing that a sneeze could signal ill health: they might say, “Salud” (Spanish for “health”) or “Gesundheit” (German for “health”) or “Sláinte” (Irish Gaelic for “good health”) or “Jeebo” (Bengali for “stay alive”).

For the most part, the various sneeze responses originated from ancient superstitions. Some people believed that a sneeze causes the soul to escape the body through the nose. Saying "bless you" would stop the devil from claiming the person's freed soul.

 Others believed the opposite: that evil spirits use the sneeze as an opportunity to enter a person's body. There was also the misconception that the heart momentarily stops during a sneeze (it doesn't), and that saying "bless you" was a way of welcoming the person back to life.

The Romans would say "Jupiter preserve you" or "Salve," which meant "good health to you," and the Greeks would wish each other "long life."

 The phrase "God bless you" is attributed to Pope Gregory the Great, who uttered it in the sixth century during a bubonic plague epidemic which sneezing was an obvious symptom of one form of the plague.

There is a legend/tradition that Pope Gregory I commanded that, any time a sneeze was heard, the sneezer was to be blessed by saying, “God bless you,” (and making the sign of the cross over his mouth) as protection against the plague.

Finally, there is no biblical validity to such superstition. At the same time, there is no biblical reason to believe it is sinful to bless someone after a sneeze—in fact, it might just be a good time to extend a kind word and say, “God bless you.”

   Interesting facts about sneezing:

• Sneezes are an automatic reflex that can’t be stopped once sneezing starts.

• Sneezes can travel at a speed of 100 miles per hour and the wet spray can radiate five feet.

• People don’t sneeze when they are asleep because the nerves involved in nerve reflex are also resting.

• Between 18 and 35% of the population sneezes when exposed to sudden bright light.

• Some people sneeze when plucking their eyebrows because the nerve endings in the face are irritated and then fire an impulse that reaches the nasal nerve.

• Donna Griffiths from Worcestershire, England sneezed for 978 days, sneezing once every minute at the beginning. This is the longest sneezing episode on record.

                                                                         

MY TURN

It was our family’s custom to go for the cross-over service on New Year’s Eve at our church and was more relevant because my parents were Knights of St Mulumba in Corpus Christi Cathedral.  This year, some of our extended relations came to celebrate with the New Year with us.

When the mass was over, it was past midnight already. My Uncle and my two cousins decided to walk home.

“Make sure you people don’t branch anywhere oh!” Mum cautioned.

“Musa! Come and walk back with us, I thought you said you are a big boy now?” Uncle Habib asked sarcastically as they strolled away.

I was a juvenile mummy’s boy that was scared of the dark and aware of the rampant vices in Portharcourt particularly during the festive period.

“Leave me alone” grasping tight unto my mother’s dress, like a suckling to its mother’s breast.

“If you people are not ready to go, I will go and leave you oh!” Dad said impatiently as he started the car.

We arrived home early. My aunt whom was not catholic had already returned from her church. It was late at night, so we went to bed.

My mum had not gone to bed yet when she overheard voices from her window which she had forgotten to close earlier on.

“Which one be your oga house?”  a deep, bass voice to the security man

We lived on the first floor of a three storied apartment. The house on the ground floor was still unoccupied.

The thieves were asking for the man living on the second floor but since that was his employer, the security man lied;

“Ahh! You wan attack my oga? He no get anything oh! But the Oga for the other house na Senator brother”   Kneeling, with one hand protecting his head and the other pointing towards my house.  

Thief oh! Thief oh! My mum began screaming like a woman set ablaze.

They heard her voice, ran towards our house door and started banging it.

“If you don’t open this door, when we come in, we will shoot all of you” the same voice mum heard earlier.

Vices were extremely rampant in my neighbourhood that when you hear people screaming for help, you ensure all your doors are locked and take shelter. I have heard cries for help many times but I never imagined it coming from my house.  

 I was sleeping with my aunt in the girl’s room which is opposite my parents’ because my uncle and cousins had not yet arrived home.

“Musa wake up and hide oh! Thieves have come” my aunt whispered with a quivering voice as she sneaked behind the door to hide.

The girl’s room in our house had two double bunk beds. I was a seven year old boy and I still had a petit physique. Whenever I played hide and seek with my friends in the house I would always shove myself through the narrow space under the bed.

It was dark; I woke up to the alarming voice of my mother and it took me a while to comprehend what was happening. I rapidly shoved my tiny body under the bed. Going under the bed was not as easy as during hide and seek. I had to struggle harder to get under.

I wanted to say the that Lord’s Prayer but I was shivering in fear so I started;

“God please let them not shoot my mummy and my daddy. I promise to continue to go to church”  

I was hoping not to hear the sound of a gunshot.

The house had gone quiet and my room’s door opened. I turned my face to the opposite direction frightened that I was about to die and more frightened to say my last prayer.

“Please don’t kill us” my aunt had already given me away by saying “us”, crouching behind the door with her eyes firmly closed.

“They have gone oh!” my mum said, coming into the room with my dad and both laughing at the countenance of my aunt.

“Where is Musa?” dad asked seeming worried now.

I made my way out of my hiding place which emboldened them to laugh even harder; my aunt included.

My cousins and Uncle returned ten minutes later and found the security man tied down with a rope and swollen eye. Frightened by this; my uncle picked up a large stick and headed to the door while my cousins hid outside.

At dawn, people started coming to the house to say they heard noises but no one actually helped. One of the people said he called the police but they never showed up.

As for the security man, my parents dealt with his matter. I don’t know how but I know I never saw him again.