different experiences of death
June 8, 2008
This week I’m in the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle spending some time with my grandmother and extended family. It’s hot, dry, and windy out here. It’s so windy that as I walked out into the flat brown pasture I thought the wind was going propel me to my knees. I love it, though. I love that last night I sat on the stiff grass in my grandparents yard and stared at the sunset-pink sky and the grain towers 4 miles away. There’s a strange freedom to this barren place.
I’ve been thinking this week about the different experiences of death in this culture as opposed to the Ethiopian culture. I had become almost used to the mournful wails and very public displays of grief I experienced there. I grew to expect the sight of a khaki-green tent blocking a street–the sign that yet another soul had been captured by death and the family and friends were gathering for the wake. I learned to understand the timing of death and burial and days of mourning and visiting and often had to plan my calendar around that schedule. I knew to cover my head, to greet the grieving family seated on a mattress somewhere in the big covered tent or inside a tiny home. I began to resonate with the drum beat and shrill cries that came after a death.
Here, it’s much more silent, experienced more as personal grief. I stepped off the plane on Tuesday morning to find out my great-aunt had died while I was in the air. I was close to this aunt and as I sit and think about her I remember countless games of Uno and Dominoes (she always won). The funeral was yesterday. Quiet viewing at the church, organ-led hymns, a reading of Psalm 23. There were sniffles and kleenex was passed around. We drove the short distance to the cemetery in caravan, and quietly walked across the dry cemetery grass to the graveside tent. The family was seated next to the casket. In minutes, the service was over.
Death is a uniting reality in our world. What a strange and horrible reality.
“I came that they may have life . . . ”
Jesus in John 10
