Yours was my maiden funeral. Father stood beside your casket, placed in the middle of the compound, a piece of wrapper round his waist.
“It is the custom” my cousin Chris had said. As your first son, he had to wear that wrapper like a woman. He was also banished from taking his bath until you were received by the earth.
“But he wouldn’t have a problem with the bath”, I thought to myself. Sometimes he worked so hard he wouldn’t have his bath for two days. On such occasions mother would ask me, “Itodo, are you sure your father is ok?”
He had a genuine excuse today - tradition. The priest went on and on, eulogizing you.
Grandma, your service had been delayed. The church fined you. They brought your attendance card and found you guilty of absenteeism in the days following the illness that took you away.
“You have to pay the fine before the priest can start the service” the treasurer had said to my father.
In the middle of the service it began to drizzle.
“But I settled Adagba the rainmaker!” Chris my cousin cursed.
I found the idea of a man holding the rain back laughable. But father didn’t want your homeward journey ruined.
Your compound had been filled with screams. The women cried, or screamed. Every one of them related to you had to cry - your sisters, your daughters and your sons’ wives. There was a fine for anyone who wasn’t emotional enough or that lacked the talent to act.
Martha your daughter couldn’t shed a tear. She gladly paid the fine.
Aunty Rose collected the fines.
“You couldn’t cry for your mother!” she queried Aunty Martha, with a bowl for the fines in her hand.
“And our wife” she said, referring to my mother. “We have reports that while Mama was alive you called her a witch”
The verdict had been passed. My mother had cried profusely, like she genuinely loved you. She was such a good actor. She paid the fine for calling you a witch, while you were alive.
Aunty Jane, Dan’s wife was also fined. Her offence was “not letting you see her two children, your grandchildren before you died”. I found it strange Dan your son wasn’t fined instead.
Your sisters inhabited your room, all four of them sitting on the floor with your casket in the center of the room. Once I breezed past the door and one of them called out, “whose child are you”.
Aunty Rose was in time to bail me.
“Don’t you know your sister’s grandchild, Itodo?” They looked at me with squinting eyes from deeply wrinkled faces as recognition hit them.
“Oh, how he has grown” a woman said. “Come give me a hug” another encouraged.
In that moment I saw you in death - cold, powerless with your jovial life frozen in the casket.
Outside in the tents arranged for dinner, the visitors murmured.
“The meat is not enough”.
“What kind of funeral is this?”
“Are they so poor?”
The questions from dissenting voices raged.
At dusk your remains were transported to your father’s house. You couldn’t be buried in your husband’s house, custom again!
I returned to the old house, where I had first lived with you at the age of 14. I could still see you preparing the meals in your tiny mud-built kitchen. I could still see you bailing water from the red muddy ground into the reservoir when it rained. At age 21, yours was my first burial and truly grandma, I wish you had witnessed it.
