By Dr. Lester CN Simon
We should die twice. The first time to hear what people say about us, and the second time for real.
As reported by Antigua News Room, the following is a commentary by Dr. Lester CN Simon exploring the rituals, contradictions, and quiet absurdities of how we mourn the departed.
Can you imagine attending your own funeral, stepping out of the coffin, and walking out of the church in total confusion? The things people say. The false weeping and gnashing of teeth — including from that one person with such poor oral hygiene you would wish their ocean of crocodile tears would flow down past their cheeky cheeks and wash their wide-open, disbelieving mouth right out.
Within minutes to hours of hearing of your death, people are calling for your soul to rest in peace. These are the very same bad-minded, covetous people who tortured that soul while you were alive. They don't even pause to consider whether the soul takes days to separate from the body before assuming its new ethereal form. It is as if they are relieved to see you gone. Condolences. Rest in peace. Rest in peace, my foot. It is a good and wise thing that jumbies can't talk bad word.
No wonder there are so many jumbies all over the place — quietly distracting people, drivers, and all — secretly hoping the hypocrites will join the jumbie gang soon enough and rest in peace too, but far, far away, preferably in an entirely different graveyard.
At least one or two mourners are honest. Give thanks for that. And among those honest ones, you have to single out those who tell the truth with flair and humour, who try to say who you really were — to the utter surprise of nearly everyone else in the room.
Consider the story of the bald-headed Rastaman who went to the Wild, Wild West — not the WWW internet. In dire need of a drink, he pushed open the batwing doors of a saloon and, being a well-brought-up man with plenty of manners, he wanted to greet everyone inside. He shouted: Jah! Legend has it he never lived to say Rastafari. May his soul rest in peace.
This matter of our customary, cultural behaviour at funerals deserves close examination. Over the years, the tone has shifted from dirge to celebration of life — and rightly so. After all, the funeral is for the living. The dead are truly hard of hearing. They cannot smell the bouquet of flowers, nor the expensive perfume you have finally decided to wear for the first time, showing yourself off in fine clothes, with parts of your body almost entirely exposed — parts the deceased never got to see, despite endless imploring and your false, deceitful, empty promises in return. You should have listened to Lord Kitchener: Gi me de ting de doctor order me. And now you want to raise the dead?
We should die twice. How many times did they kill The Mighty Sparrow, the Barb of the Caribbean? The news reported that he had died from a bladder condition and a double dose of leukaemia. He had had a belly transplant operation in England. And there he was, standing in a corner, listening to his own death announcement. Better yet, he sang about it. His funeral played out on television and these days streams across a world wide web of lies.
A proper funeral celebration should include the playing of recorded music that the departed loved and wanted to share. Music such as A Love Supreme by John Coltrane, alongside its live version by Branford Marsalis. Nubian Sundance by Weather Report. Celebration Suite, No Mystery and Interplay by Return to Forever. So What and Freddie Freeloader by Miles Davis from his Kind of Blue album. Do not leave out Lonely Woman by the inimitable Ornette Coleman, First Light by Freddie Hubbard, A Lotus on Irish Streams by John McLaughlin and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, and the Adagietto from Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
Only the Nunc Dimittis shall the congregation be permitted to sing. At that point, you are on your way out of the church, to be greeted by an iron band before being interred to the melodious sound of a steel band.
At the repast that follows, they drink off all the liquor and eat all the food your hard-earned money provided, while chatting lies and gossip about you. Thankfully, someone will pause and ask: Is this really So-and-So's funeral? They will think you ought to rise again, return in three days, and witness how people are carrying on. With that thought in mind, only one word will come to that person — drink in hand, musing in the shadows, walking away from the maddening crowd.
