On Mourning

Funeral Dynamics To Note

Dying in the South-South is not a unique experience. Of course, my limited practice of the subject constrains my credibility. Loving a dead person or burying them—which is more my field—is where all kinds of dynamism occur.

Here are a few that stand out:

1. Programme Dynamics:
   A “programme” is anything from a leaflet to a hardbound college dissertation containing the funeral’s order of events, pictures from the deceased’s life, their biography, tributes, and condolence messages—not necessarily in that order. Watch out for an ad from the printers of this to “Make special memories with Rainbow Digital Media” above the gallery of the deceased carrying their now orphaned child on her lap. And right after that, suspicious tributes from toddlers you know cannot spell “sonnet,” much less write one.

The programmes are important to note because they are highly political. You must have some kept away for family members and members of the dead person’s church unit. They are your top priority during distribution if you are bestowed the honour. As is custom, an ordinary audience member will quiet-yell at you for forgetting to hand them a programme. You must take the opportunity to assure them that you will make sure there’s plenty to go round at their own funeral.

2. Audio Dynamics:
   There will be something unseemly about the volume of the music that’s playing because sound setup protocol demands the area the family sits is framed by 80-inch surround sound speakers. It helps, on the off chance anyone is still in the denial stage of grief. It’s harder to deny mortality at 310 decibels.

The music itself is bad covers of popular gospel songs, and the singer is too happy, too theatrical. The moderator and speakers try too hard to pronounce English words for a funeral that is not about them or the prowess of their diction. The live band is on fire though. If you weren’t sitting under the better canopy, you would miss the sound of your family crying under the rigorous, inspired, sweaty drumming.

3. Emotional Dynamics:
   You’re resentful at the crowd because you think they are unfeeling gawkers. You are also grateful, because their detachment is what keeps this funeral going. Nobody else has the energy to respond to the Pastor’s prompts, or rise and fall at the suggestion of the MC.

The show glass keeps you steady in a way. It feels like the world should not be moving on and there is an emergency in your heart that everyone needs to stop and get help for. But the crowd will not, cannot, validate your feelings—which is good, because it keeps you upright. And you walk and talk and get things done.

You’re surprised that you keep crying and that it catches you at the wrong times—like when you’re eating hot fufu and egusi—and not only when you realise your cousin is an orphan, or your mother has lost a brother, or you’ve lost a friend.

4. Drip Mechanics:
   You would think there’s a time when it’s okay to take off your shades. There isn’t. No one can see your eyes under the shades, but your lips give you away—to your mother, to everyone actually, though you don’t know that yet.
   A scarf is another strong choice. Choose a big, dark-coloured one.

5. The Drunks:
   Some people come to your funeral for the booze. They will linger with their alcoholic friends laughing up a storm and making insensitive comments about death, grief, and just for the sake of it, women.
   Take it in stride.
   Because a funeral hero you didn’t know you needed doth attend thee. No one will wrap up their business, shame them in the process, and vindicate you like the event company hands coming to take their chairs away. Wait on them, your salvation cometh.

6. Food Dynamics:
   We didn’t serve food at the funeral. To this day, it fills my heart with joy.

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On A Closing Note

Grief makes us ask questions we didn’t think we’d face. And questions, after all, are where OTN began.

Longest time, OTN readers. How are you? I hope to resume writing fully soon, starting with a study on how faith or religion, as well as the lack of it, influences the way people prepare for the future.

I started OTN really because I wanted to ask these questions and discuss the answers. And as more and more questions come up in the course of living, I’d like to neatly check answering them off my list one by one.

I hope that you’ll join me in this by sharing your thoughts, so every form filled is a step towards a holistic view of all our different perspectives—which I think is true art and beauty in this world. I’m looking forward to a great end of 2025 with you all.

See you soon.