Recently I shared with you my first experience of a Malawian funeral. In many regards, it was very like most American (Caucasian?) services: singing and/or music, Scripture, meditation(s) and/or eulogies. However, it was nearly three hours in length rather than one; it was outside, the women seated upon the ground, the men upon chairs; the singing was well over an hour, begun first by one here, then by another there; all five hundred of us filed by the open casket, laid upon the living room floor of the deceased; and an offering was taken for the grieving family.
(When previously I shared this experience, I had noted that I felt as though I had committed a cultural faux pas: when the offering for the family was received, I too contributed, but because I had not yet exchanged my US dollars for Malawian kwachas,[1] I simply gave what I had – little knowing that the total would be announced according to given currencies. Thus, since apparently I was the only one contributing US dollars, what I gave became public knowledge. I was immediately flooded with questions: Did I give too much? Did I give too little? What will they think? In all probability, few if any associated the US dollars with me– but my cultural insecurities howled.)
From this funeral experience, however, I will most remember the expressed grief, both personal and collective of those mourning. The deceased, a young man aged twenty-three, had drowned in a boating accident. Not all of the details of his death were known or shared (so many US boating accidents involve alcohol), but it’s very likely that he neither knew how to swim nor had a life vest – a sudden turn, a wave, a crowed boat, his pitching overboard, a crack on the head …
Several speakers echoed a common refrain: Evans (the young man’s name) was soon to graduate; the great investments in his life, soon to bear fruit; a beleaguered nation soon to benefit from his certain giftedness. But soon will never happen, and those gathered will be forever bereft of promises. As I observed a young woman seated across from me, “why?” emanated from her every look and gesture. As I now think of her, John Donne’s words come to mind:
“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”
Faithfully,
Stan
[1] The current rate of exchange is $1: K735.