As it was the tradition of our people for the living to inspect the dead before he or she could be buried, Mother and grandfather, in line with tradition, went in to where my father was laid. Later, the in-laws, distant relatives and friends whom I did not see afterward followed suit. They were as many as I could count and wondered how death brings people together.
The many people who came to sympathize over the loss sat around, watching the young men digging my father’s grave. The pit was going deeper and deeper and they were sweating so hard. They walked tirelessly in silence, trying to keep to time. They knew that it was no moment for talk, but silence and sorrow. Already the dark topsoil had given way to the red earth which was used by women to scrub the floor and walls of huts and fresh graves. Mba was standing by the pit giving them instruction and ensuring that they commit to the work to the finish. He was a good hand at it. The grave had gone deeper than most diggers; from the pit they threw up red earth. Soon the grave was deep enough to inter the dead body and they were all asked to come out.
That morning, the body of my father went down. It seemed as if the world would collapse on our head: the birds chirped loudly and monotonously in the nearby bush, making the day fearsome: the winds blew softly, touching the leaves; the sun, struggled with the cloud for a place in the sky, increased its intensity, which everyone felt. Spectators, who were mostly men and women and our relatives, surrounded the pit. According to our custom, they were to be around to say their farewell to him. They wished him a safe journey to the land of the dead and told him many things which I could not understand at my age; I was told he was conscious and could hear everything said to him.
I had never seen Mother cry as she did the day my father was buried. She finally realized that this was their final parting; that his death had come to stay. It was at that moment that I came to believe that grief was a normal and natural response to the loss of someone we love and there was no way she could have avoided it. Other groups of men and women of all age-brackets looked upon my father’s corpse wordlessly; some were sympathizing, others apologizing. It was here, even as a child that I was then, that I became particularly unhappy with those apologizing. They were mostly his friends who had deserted him on his sick bed, when it occurred to them that he could not survive.
I took my eyes away and settled them upon my grandfather. As a child, I never imagined that tears could run down his eyes because of his age. I had innocently trusted his past bravery while the events unfolded. As he came out with Mother from the crammed room where my father was kept, his eyes were brimmed with tears. He stopped and stared fixedly at the corpse for the last time, and shook his head heavily. He knew his son dying before him had died a bad death.
Eventually, father was buried amidst tears that afternoon, according to the tradition of our people. Mother, who could not bear the thoughts of him leaving us, almost followed him to the grave. He was buried a pagan and Mother, who had recently embraced the new Christian faith, could do nothing to stop that. Even if she tried, at that time, she could hardly tell her right from left.
Mother did not stop crying. She buried her face in her lap and shook her whole body. Some of the sympathizers added to her grief by weeping along with her; others simply stared at her with dry tears. My siblings and I were shown a lot of love and many tried to carry us in their arms, telling us stories which, I never believed to be true. They were normal attempts to make us, especially me, to forget our father. But the more I stayed around, the more his memories lived around me. Mother in her tears said things that made me believe that henceforth, I could not find my father in her room whenever I got there. Mother! I knew she would be completely lost without my father.
The drummers and the singers came afterward, and did an unforgettable job. They ran around our compound and nearby compounds, cutting down domestic trees, throwing anything they could lay their hands on the roads, raising their voice in lamentation. I was getting the sense of it all.