I have been thinking of death lately. And who can blame me? In April, a friend of mine (facebook friend actually) died. His girlfriend asked me specially to attend the funeral. Couldn’t say no. So there I was saying ‘Hello Joseph. Goodbye Joseph,’ it was bizarre.
Then in October, another friend, Ogo, died. This is not good. When you get old, you can expect to have people dropping off like flies all around you. But not at my age.
Now, all these deaths have caused me to be musing about death – not a favourite pastime of mine – as I find myself going from funeral to funeral with barely enough time in between to change clothes. I even caught myself reading an article, ‘How To Prepare a Loved One for Death.’ Hmmm.
I used to like funerals. I really used to. There was a time when people understood what funerals were all about: crying. Loud raucous crying. Deep, heaving Sobs. Drama. Fury. Streams of tears. Floor rolling, thigh slapping, hit-head-on-the-nearest-wall kind of caterwauling. Scatter-body, scatter-place kind of yowling. Tear cloth and your neighbour’s cloth . . . you get the picture.
That also was when people revered death. I enjoyed the wearing of black, the solemnity of the proceedings, the somnolent music that pulled at the heartstrings – hell, funeral music used to be funereal, designed to make you cry even if you didn’t feel like it. I liked the long faces, the menacing presence of the Grim Reaper, scythe held at the ready to swing at anyone who seemed too unperturbed. Those were the days!
Nowadays, funerals are no longer sacred. And you know who I blame? I blame religious people; the clergy in general, and pastors in particular. They have put a too happy face on death, reassuring people too much of eternal rest and being in ‘a better place’ and all such wonder-stuff. They have placed such an embargo on grief, equating it to a lack of belief in eternal life, and/or a lack of willingness to accept a divine pronouncement.
There are a number of reasons why people need to mourn as heartbrokenly as they can, or wish to.
First, tears are therapeutic. I don’ think I need to provide links to any articles, or scientific facts to back this up. It is as simple as it sounds. You cry, you feel better.
Second, when a person is gone, they are irretrievably gone. You need to cry for all that was, is and never was and now never will be.
To counter, or dispute this, the clergy try to force eternal life on people.
I have some problems with eternal life;
- The criteria for qualifying for eternal life are so confusing and uncertain and fraught with ambiguity, that in the end, no one is really sure who will make it, and who wouldn’t/didn’t into this eternal place(s).
- The fact that my friend and/or family member made it into eternal life and I didn’t means we are still incontrovertibly separated. No hope for a reunion. So nothing doing.
- Still going on the premise that there is an afterlife, it is the general understanding that we will be so altered that mortality would take on immortality and so the things we like now, we won’t like then. I daresay if that is the case, the guy I drink vodka with, I can hardly see us singing Hallelujah together in heaven, even if we both made it in. It’s too weird.
- There is something deeply disturbing about the fact that while we are flexing in eternal life, some people we loved on earth will be burning in some place called Hell. Will we be made to suffer amnesia too, in order to be able to relax and enjoy eternal life?
- As with the question of the many gods that people subscribe to, how about if there are many eternities and we all show up in different places. Imagine me in Heaven and my friend Sidi in Paradise and my friend Shawon in Nirvana and so on. What good is that to anyone? Or are all the eternities synonyms of each other, so we all get to collide in one big sky party (thinking mile-high club) – the Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu etc, and argue forever whose god is better. Or maybe by then, all the gods would have been subsumed into one, much like Pharoah’s magicians’snakes/ rods and Moses’.
- And finally, my biggest problem with eternal life. WE REALLY DON’T KNOW. You may believe, that’s your prerogative. You may hope, and wish and argue. But truth is, you don’t know for a fact that there is an afterlife.
From the foregoing therefore, it is my opinion that when a person dies, to you, they are finished. Gone. And if this isn’t enough to cause the floodgates to burst open, then what were they worth to you?
Yet, what pastors and priests are doing now is making people feel guilty about grieving. It is unacceptable, this unnatural suppression. How can I go to two funerals of young people and all I see is a sea of dry-eyed faces, each trying to out-accept the other in “the will of God ” and eternity. It is an outrage. The music is upbeat, in fact, in one of them, the pastor made an altar call and he proclaimed thus; “I can assure you that Joseph Dubem Udolisa will be very happy that on the occasion of his funeral, some people gave their lives to Christ. In fact, today is the best day of Joseph’s life.” I wanted to slap this bastard. Pastor, NO! I knew Joseph, and believe me, he wanted to be drinking beer and making love to his girlfriend. He didn’t want to die so you can use his funeral to win members for your church or whatever.
You see what I mean? These people are making people inured to death, when death is the most final thing there is to life. That’s why it is called “paying your last respects.” You should do it and do it well, empty yourself and be done with it. Not this antiseptic, lingering grief they prescribe. As far as we know, we only got this one life.
Here’s what I want when I die;
- I don’t want people going through my stuff, you know, my infantile scribbling, amateur poetry, love letters. You can however have my clothes and such.
- I would say cremate my body after harvesting the organs, but my family would have a fit. I really don’t care. Don’t take me in a church. These people have spoilt church for me.
- If you however do take me to church, no soul winning today. I am not happy I died, don’t add salt to my injury And everybody should wear black, and I don’t mean black jeans and flimsy see-through tops. I mean sombre, proper, if possible, oversized black coats (not blazer, or suits or jacket. Coat. There is a difference).
- Please let my family and friends cry. I deserve it. Let them grieve, lose their minds, stab themselves in the knee several times with a blunt object. My friend’s funeral, right in the church, there was a screen were a slide show of her pictures was rolling. Made me mad. I will only like that if it provokes a fresh bout of crying anytime a new picture slides in.
- If you owe me money, go and give it to my family. I will haunt you.
- If I owe you money, go and tell my family to give you your money. If I borrowed your stuff, go and ask permission to ransack and get your shit back. I did not die so that you will suffer. People are always dying and holding onto my stuff with a death grip, (the latest was my flash drive and eighteen thousand Naira) I don’t like it and won’t do it to you.
- Even if I don’t really care what happens after I’m dead, I would like to be buried somewhere nice. Think about it. I can’t stand horror movies. Then I die and you make me a horror movie. It’s not fair and it’s not right.
- Finally, I would like my friends to, when they are done crying, gather, have a big party and just talk about me. I would like that, being the star of the show. I know the curtain into the inner sanctum will not be ripped in two, the skies will not thunder with thunder or light up with lightning, with not shriek with streaks of luminosity, no falling or shooting stars, no rainbows. Google will not even register a blip. No, all the probability in the universe will not gather and applaud, nature will not revert. Nothing dramatic will happen. But you my friends will cry. And then you will party. And then you will carry me around fondly like a dull ache. And know that I came and lived and loved and died and gone.
Finally before I go, people always ask why all manner of things happen to me. I cannot say that I know the answer to that, but here’s something else that happened. The last funeral I went for, first my friend fell into a grave. Yup. Stood on a slab on an old grave and the thing just broke and he fell through. Then on our way leaving the cemetery, we thought we should try out a new route. Let’s just leave it at saying, we shouldn’t have.
u got me laughing at if u owe me……..i will haunt u bit….
what happened to ur pal when u took the new route? i am curious
I could say that I hate tailors/designers because:
1. They are never honest.
2. They sometimes experiment with my clothes and a good number of times ruin it.
3. They never deliver the date/time they promised to hence disappointing me.
However, can see the problem with my reasoning? I am generalizing, which is wrong. Nothing is absolute, nothing.
So when you generalize religion and Christianity in terms of grief I see it flawed.
To my understanding – it is okay to be sad, it is okay to grief.
It is however not okay to jump into the grave of a loved one buried, it is not okay to stab someone in your moment of grief. It is not okay to go all Romeo and Juliet.
That is where a good balance of faith comes in.
You state that you don’t know for certain if there is heaven or an afterlife; I don’t know for a fact if there is no afterlife either. Everything actually points me that there is. So I choose to believe what the bible says, you could say – it’s a lie but honestly what do I have to lose by believing in it? On the flip side if there is actually an afterlife I have everything to lose by not believing.
If indeed afterlife/heaven/hell is nothing but a ‘myth’ or a ‘lie’ then by all means I welcome it if at the end of the day it gives me hope or stops me from jumping into the grave alongside the casket of a deceased loved one.
P/S I miss you Pee.
I could say that I hate tailors/ designers because:
1. They are never honest.
2. They sometimes experiment with my clothes and a good number of times ruin it.
3. They never deliver the date/time they promised to hence disappointing me.
However, can see the problem with my reasoning? I am generalizing, which is wrong. Nothing is absolute, nothing.
So when you generalize religion and Christianity in terms of grief I see it flawed.
To my understanding – it is okay to be sad, it is okay to grief.
It is however not okay to jump into the grave of a loved one buried, it is not okay to stab someone in your moment of grief. It is not okay to go all Romeo and Juliet.
That is where a good balance of faith comes in.
You state that you don’t know for certain if there is heaven or an afterlife; I don’t know for a fact if there is no afterlife either. Everything actually points me that there is. So I choose to believe what the bible says, you could say – it’s a lie but honestly what do I have to lose by believing in it? On the flip side if there is actually an afterlife I have everything to lose by not believing.
If indeed afterlife/heaven/hell is nothing but a ‘myth’ or a ‘lie’ then by all means I welcome it if at the end of the day it gives me hope or stops me from jumping into the grave alongside the casket of a deceased loved one.
P/S I miss you Pee.
it is sad that you lost your friends, accept my condolence…i truly believe death is a sort of freedom, of the soul from the problems of the world. so they are set free, and we are the ones that die, we are the ones that feel the pain.
Peewee, u know when a death hurts me too deeply I tend not to mourn per se. When u do die (I think u may crook before me, u too find trouble n may get what’s coming to u :p) I shall haunt myself, I shall refuse to eat, I shall not cry by day n only cry in my dreams. I shall make a sexy dress in d expensive ankara we shall pick as ur mourning apparel n wear appropriately matching heels n a facinator to boot. Afterwards, yes! I shall party n flirt @ d party for all I am worth! I shall mourn u my friend but in my own way…* walks away in a flimsy lingerie huff *
Eat your heart out. *_*
Ok, first of all, u’r hilariously crazy, and I love it. Secondly, this piece was so heart and thought ripping. What I hate the most is when people think they are comforting you when they say insensitive things like, ‘the dead is dead and gone, and your tears will not bring him back’.
I pray for the unfortunate person who will tell me that on the day I happen to be mourning. He/she will not be spared.
Yes, I also agree with the part where religion has robbed us of the relief of being publicly wrecked and saddened at the loss of of our loved ones. And what more, I join you to insist that it is alright to weep, wall-crash, blunt knee stab, clothes rend and hair pull. I’l do it for my mother, father, siblings, friends. I will because I cannot even imagine my life without them.
Thank you.
Lmao. Kai! See me thinking I was funny, bet dis gal u r funny die. This is my first time commenting, even if I’ve been following this blog for a while. Look at you, talking about death and usurping people’s belief in eternity, and making it all lighthearted and cool at the same time. “Not blazer, coat: there’s a difference. I will haunt you.” Hilarious.Tuale jor. Big ups on the work.
Pastors and emotional blackmail though .. It is so annoying. If you wanna donate your organs, I am sure your family will have a fit but in the end, they’ll have to respect your wishes. So please donate your organs, it is better than it just wasting six feet under. Someone might need it. Lovely write-up.
People handle grief differently. No one should dictate to me how to “feel” my pain. It’s pretty personal. Good going
GOOD GOD! I love people that think, but i love them more when they do it differently, thts why i Luv this piece, n Pearl evn MORE. Try n live forever cos they will hate u when u die, with all these things u want done!
humorous piece, interesting actually, let me guess, hardly answers your nagging questions on eternity and if this is read at your funeral there wont be any watery eye, except from deep laughter…we can mask unbelief in anyway we want, but not curiosity, we can blame the church folks for spoiling this or that…but what happens in absolute reality will not be their fault…..keep asking questions, when you find what keeps the ” 4th rock from sun” in balance, aha! you can close your eyes in peace…
I enjoyed the read,welldone!
Now onto afterlife yarns,perishing and the likes… If a ‘god’ created us and feels because we didn’t follow a set way/s which by the way this god could make us follow if ‘he/she’ so wishes, its His loss not mine (not to mention the vainness of this kind of behaviour) And what’s with the dualities anyway? Heaven n Hell, Man n Woman, Devil n god, Pain n Joy,you n me… My dear earthlings this life is complex enough and beyond our comprehension enough for us to begin plans on how we should live an afterlife… And yes! If I die my organs should be sold and the monies given to my loved ones. I am worth more than dashing my organs. Live while you’re alive! Am Out!!!
Well said like a true free thinker. Respect!
Pingback: ON DEATH, FUNERALS & ETERNITY | joe ijomah
Reblogged this on joe ijomah and commented:
great piece
It’s true. Funerals are no longer what they used to be. They have been perverse by Pentecostal pastors. Gone are the days of funerals suffused with Stygian mood, ennobled with somnolent sad hymns, officiated by clergy with sepulchral mien, and attended by lachrymose mourners. Funerals today are no different from thanksgivings. Some years ago, I was appalled as I watched Pastor Taiwo Odukoya at his wife’s, Pastor Bimbo, funeral carrying on as if he were at a revival service. He was shouting in a jubilant voice, ”I know my redeemer liveth!”. I was to understand his triumphal mood when I read some months later that he had remarried – to a young South African beauty. Pastor Odukayo’s attitude was to sent the tone for other widowed Pentecostal pastors.
It’s a desecration of the memory of the dead to carry on as if their passing had been a non-event. They might as well had not lived at all if no one made a show of missing them. Pastors who exhort members to be happy and jubilant at funerals are ignorant of the scriptures. The Bible encouraged hearty mourning of the dead. The book of Lamentations was all about mourning and giving vent to grief and sorrow. Even Jesus set an example when he shed copious tears at Lazarus’s tomb.
Wow! Reading your blogpost for the 1st time. This is brilliant!! Loool the dead aren’t respected anymore with greaving
JUST PASSING BY THOUGH. NICE WRITE UP DUDU
Pearl-like. U smashed it
Ah! Pearl! Masterpiece! First of all, you better not die anytime soon– but whenever it happens, plenty of years from now, and if I am still around– I’m going to look so fucking sharp in my black coat and designer sunglasses at your funeral. Hell, I may even wear some kinda long-ass weave and look all Hollywood. I will look so good, some married pastor might try to take me home. LOL!
I love your crazy ass. You say all the things I want to say, only better! ❤
Zenique, i doubt that very much. You my sister are a fantastic writer, person and i love u to death. And back. As for my funeral, we will see about that
forgive me . i am laughing right now. you just had to find a way to blame pastors for all the singing and jubilation that goes with one’s death.
i get why they are doing that, it makes the pain of loosing them less ( like i will see them some day, *eyes rolling*)
in adding to your problem with eternal life; it seems the only reason we are here on earth is to do all we can to qualify for eternal bliss, which therefore makes whatever we are living for right now moot since the eternal life is the real deal.
it just means we have only three missions on earth
1. praise God
2. lead people who don’t know God to him so they can praise Him too
3. focus on getting into heaven
LOL. Very bleak, no? Kai. And all because the alternative is so horrible. Why is it not heaven or The Maldives. Let me see who will want to go to boring heaven.
yea, right. The Maldives
i think we would have the slight problem of over population in Maldives considering that all that will be done in heaven is singing, singing and more singing
See what i’m saying?
Hi there! This post could not be written any better!
Looking at this post reminds me of my previous roommate!
He continually kept preaching about this. I’ll send this
information to him. Pretty sure he will have a good read.
Thank you for sharing!