THE FUCKENING

 When a tree falls, the people of science look to science to explain the fall. Maybe it had been hollowed out with age and the wind during a storm was too strong for it. However, in our culture, occurrences such as these do not get the luxury of a scientific explanation.

The week my brother died, a tree fell in my grandfather’s compound. It was right on the edge, so part of it blocked the road and another part fell into the neighbor’s land. I could swear that for every death in the family, there’s always been a premonition if you ask, my brother’s was the tree. Similar to the tree, the suicide did not get the luxury of a scientific explanation. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself…

Grief isn’t how it’s portrayed in movies, I imagined my family and I having vigils to sit and talk and cry together. Instead, my mom spent most of her time hosting guests who had come to pass their condolences, and my brother, my cousin and I spent most of our time together playing a game on my brother’s tablet. I continued to not eat, my brother ate little but my cousin ate enough for both of us. As much as it wasn’t the vigil I had hoped for, spending a lot of time with the kids sort of held me together.

I still cried in the mornings when I woke up and the news registered afresh. And I slept in my mother’s bed. One morning I woke up to the song ‘Uko Hapa’ by Highest Praise Band playing on repeat on my mom’s phone and as I wept that morning, I wanted so desperately to believe the words of the song, that I wasn’t completely isolated in my pain. Not going to lie though, it did not feel that way.

Eventually, we had to travel to shags to start funeral arrangements. A funeral that my mother had forewarned me would be no ordinary funeral. As soon as we got to my grandpa’s compound though, it’s like my emotional-self shut down and my logical-self took over. I felt angry, like I was going to war and I would get my brother the best send-off that I could, traditions be damned.

Immediately we got in, my mom and I went into a meeting with a bunch of officials from the Catholic Church. My extended family is affiliated with a church called Friends, however, the church at home had refused to conduct the funeral due to the circumstances surrounding the death. Luckily, Vicky had converted to Catholicism while he was in primary school, so it was all good. The Priest was willing to conduct the service, so long as we were able to produce his baptism card, which we were. I thought the meeting would be difficult, but the priest was really kind, which made the whole thing so much easier. They just let us know how the service would look like and what would be required of us, bible verses, offerings, timings and all that.

Then later on we met with a bunch of old men who would be writing his Eulogy. I didn’t understand why this had to be done by strangers, but I think the kindness from the priest had taken the fight out of me, so we just gave them the information required of us.

I spent the rest of my time there collecting information about how exactly the traditional burial would look like and why it had to be that way. My mom’s sisters answered my questions to the best of their knowledge up to the point where they couldn’t. I realized that this was a new thing for them as well, despite the fact that they’d been around for a while longer.

On the day of the funeral, I woke up feeling unwell, so my mom got someone to take me to a nearby health center. The kids came with, glad for a chance to get out of chores and constantly being sent to places. We spent most of the morning at the clinic, and when we came back, my appetite made an appearance. I had my own lunch, then I had my mom’s and when a friend of mine came to pass her condolences, I had a third lunch with her. Additionally, while we were walking her to a place where she could get a motorbike, I had Chips Mwitu.

Honestly, at this point, I wasn’t feeling any feelings, I was just functioning like I was also a person who had come to comfort the grieving people. We are way into the afternoon at this point, you must be confused because why am I not telling you about the funeral yet? Well, we’re luhya and in our culture, death by suicide send offs are done at night. By complete strangers.

It was a whole thing! My uncle left really early in the morning to go and try to find people who could conduct the funeral. They had to be from far away, so that there was no chance that any of us would interact with them afterwards. From what I heard, he had a really hard time finding people to do it, but eventually he did.

When they got to my grandpa’s compound, they could practically smell the desperation off us, so when negotiations for payment began, they played hard ball. My cousins and I were watching the negotiations from a distance and one of my cousins was translating what was happening to the rest of us, since they were happening in our vernacular. It was crazy, those men were visibly drunk and they did not give a shit. Dusk was fast approaching and we didn’t exactly have any options, so the people negotiating had to dance to their tune. Eventually, an agreement was reached.

I think my grief had been suspended at some point because I was so scared of going against the cultural practices. Apparently, if they are not followed to the latter, the curse could recur. My logical mind was quick to dismiss all of it as bullshit, but there was a small part of me that was in shock and really scared because in the event that this shit happened to someone else in the neighborhood, I didn’t want my family to be blamed.

Another effect of the cultural practices was shunning by the community at my shags. Usually, in the event that a family had a funeral, neighbors would come to help out with chores and just to pay respects. However, since this case was considered a curse, no one came, because they didn’t want to ‘catch the curse’. So it became a family affair and all the help we got was hired. There were friends of the family present who chose to ‘brave the curse’ and their support was a big help to us all.

Darkness set in and the grave diggers began their work. My brothers and I sat as close as we were allowed to the gravesite in utter silence. As we sat there, we watched the hearse arrive, and we knew his body was in there but we were not so much as allowed to look at the coffin.

We were all herded into the house soon after on instruction by some old lady. She wanted the girls in one room and the boys in another, but there was no way I was getting separated from my brothers. So we all went into the room and waited. As part of the ongoing gig, the family had to be locked in the house and all the lights switched off as the burial was conducted.

While we sat in the room, I realized that no one had explained to my little brother and cousin what was happening or why. So I took it upon myself to explain to them what I had learnt so far and fielded a couple of questions from them. Then the lights went off.

That room was dark as fuck! My older brother was sitting beside me, he held my hand and I put my head on his shoulder and we waited. As if sitting in the dark wasn’t terrible enough, we listened as the people burying my brother flogged the casket and yelled profanities at him for what he had done. I comforted myself with the thought that that was just a body, not my brother. My brother was resting. The small comfort worked for the moment, but no. That body was his home for over sixteen years, it deserved better.

Eventually, the lights came back on and we were allowed back outside, though still nowhere near the grave site. I ended up in one of the houses with a bunch of my male cousins who were eating and drinking. My appetite had disappeared again, so my plate remained untouched, but I partook in a bit of the drinking.

The end of the night found me outside on the terrace, talking to one of my cousins who had basically watched me grow up. We had the kind of conversation I didn’t think I’d be able to have with anyone in my family. Somehow he made room for my grief and my emotions came rushing back. The traditional part was over, and some of my fear over fucking everything up by feeling the loss was gone, so I broke down. And he held me while I cried, and the tears kept coming. I don’t know how long we sat there, but eventually he suggested I get some sleep because we had the church service in the morning.

I went into the house, found a place to crash, but just before I did, I found print outs of the funeral program. I was supposed to read his eulogy so I translated it from Swahili to English while I wept, trying not to wake the other sleeping people in the room. I was in so much pain, I don’t even know how I made it through the translation. By the end, I couldn’t get myself to stop crying, so I stopped trying.

I don’t remember falling asleep but I must have because next thing I knew, it was morning and we had a funeral service to get to. I was on autopilot as I took a bath and changed, then I was sitting at the front of a gathering. Then I was crying. Then I had to get up and read the eulogy. I didn’t even read the one I translated, I just read the Swahili version through tears. Midway, one of my aunts in the audience asked me to be louder, I’m not sure that I was, but they let me go through the rest uninterrupted.

Then there was a procession to the grave-site to cleanse it and then the service was over. I was sitting on the terrace from last night, feeling completely useless and unsure what to do now. Initially, the plan was that I leave the next day, however, I couldn’t stand the thought of being there anymore and then having to travel by myself the next day. Luckily, a bunch of my cousins were leaving to Nairobi immediately after, so I asked my mom if I could leave with them and she said yes. I didn’t really have any packing to do, so I just got my bag and got in the backseat. I spent the trip in silence, pretending to be asleep and trying not to cry.