Slice of Life, Afternoon of August 9th 2017: A death in the family

This morning, at 10:30am, my aunt died.

She lived in my host parents’ house. I used to see her every time I stopped by their house, sitting on a mat outside the door. Her health had been decreasing for some time, as she looked feeble and her speaking was difficult to understand. Last Sunday, with my host mom’s assistance, I’d helped her sit upright.

Faena died this morning, and I still don’t know the details, but I assume it’s because she wouldn’t wake up. I heard the news from another teacher at around 11am.

As there is a wedding this week, I ate lunch at the loved shelter, and then went over to my host family’s house for the krai.

Faena’s body was obscured by sheets of fabric and mourning friends and family. They crowded around her, holding her covered shoulder, or leg, and wailed. It was unsettling. In pure daylight, her body was there a few feet away from me, beside the house, on a straw mat on the concrete ground. The crying was not quiet sobs. It was soulful wails of loss and heartbreak.

I walked around the house near the front door, where my host papa was sitting. He sat there beside his brother, staring at the ground quietly, his eyes wet. I shook his hand, and he didn’t let go. I sat beside him and he told me how Faena was his only sister in a family full of brothers, how she’d been sick for some time, and how the burial would be at 4pm today.

After returning to school after the lunch break, the headmaster gathered the students to announce they would have the rest of the day off, as someone in the village had passed away.

Now it was 4pm. I’d walked home earlier, and the sun was peeking through the trees. Now, clouds blanketed the sky in a grim grey.

I walked near my family’s house to the funeral shelter: a tarp covering a basic bamboo structure over a flat concrete area that was once a foundation for a building. As I approached, several women were wrapping the body in colored fabric as one sprinkled her with baby powder. More wrapping, more powder. One layer even included a perfumed spray. After many layers, a straw mat was wrapped around her. I noticed the mat had colored feathers and flowers tied to it. The woman sitting beside me said that because the wedding was this week, the groom’s family donated one of the straw mats from the bride price to the funeral.

After layers upon layers of fabric and mats, Faena’s body was wrapped in a plain white sheet. Two elders and two pastors, wearing white shirts or dresses, stood around her body and led a prayer. After, one of them looks up and leads a song. I don’t understand the words as it’s sung in the local language, but there’s sorrow and hope in the melody. I later find out the name of the song is “Epei Nadodomiana” which roughly translates to “the door will open.” As the words are sung, Juju walks toward me from across the shelter. He uncomfortably straddles a concrete step and the coral ground to sit beside me and burrow his head in my knees.

A man in a black, tropical-printed shirt walks up beside the pastors and recites a neiratif, or a eulogy. He’s the first to show true sorrow in the ceremony, choking back sobs between each sentence. He says Faena was born in 1960, and she attended the local school. She was a housegirl, and she was kind: she gave food to anyone who’d walked past. After he concludes, the pastors lead another prayer and another song in the local language. This time, it is a quiet, joyful melody titled "Lae Lae Nawota," roughly translated to "we're glad to see the king above."

As everyone sings, I look over to my papa and he’s silently patting his eye with the edge of his shirt as he holds my 7-year-old host brother, Tari, tightly in his lap.

The song ends and there’s silence. A few men have brought a ladder-like bamboo structure to the shelter: a stretcher. The sound of whimpers and wails builds as several men, including the chief, carry Faena’s body onto the stretcher. The eerie wailing increases to a deafening volume as the men carry her body away, toward the gravesite. A few women gather some small bouquets from a black bucket filled with water and follow behind. Some people stay at the site and cry, while I follow a silent minority towards Faena’s grave.

As we walk to the gravesite, it’s quiet. I want to comfort those who are sniffling into scarves or those who are solemnly looking towards the ground as their feet trod forward. Only the children are embraced by parents, while other adults each walk alone. I want to help, but I don’t know the appropriate way. I clasp my hands in front of me and walk.

The graveyard is quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional chirping bird, our shoes pressing against the ground, or distant ocean waves.  Some graves have headstones or concrete blocks for the gravesite. Others are circles of large rocks or overturned glass bottles, with the inside of the circle filled with small bits of white coral.

The crowd gathers around a deep hole in the ground beside a large pile of dirt. Lining the grave are two large pieces of colorful fabric: hot pink with white leaves and turtles printed on one sheet, green and brown and orange flowers printed on another. More of the mourners have joined us after they were done crying at the funeral site. Faena’s white fabric-wrapped body is lowered into the hole with the aid of strips of brightly-printed calico.

Another straw mat is placed over her body in the grave, along with more layers of fabric and calico and baby powder and perfume. The perfume and powder bottles are tossed inside. Meanwhile, the pastors recite a prayer and a few young men loudly chop the bamboo stretcher. Once the prayer is complete, the men toss the bamboo pieces into the grave, which hold the mat’s edges in place around the body-shaped mound.

Each person in the crowd then takes turns scooping a handful of dirt from the large pile and tossing it into the hole. One pastor recites a prayer as the crowd steps back, and several young men quickly and aggressively shovel the dirt over the body in the grave. One man stands inside, patting the dirt with his feet.

The prayer ends and the grave is now full. The clinking of glass is the only sound hanging in the air as the men grab amber, blue and green bottles, overturn them, and shove them in the ground, lining the grave with just a few inches of each bottle exposed above the ground. They pour a sack of small white coral pieces over the dirt and spread it with their hands and place a Y-shaped stick at the head of the grave. Against the stick, they gently place a floral arrangement in the shape of a cross within a circle. A few other mourners place fresh flowers and plastic-wrapped silk flower bouquets beside it.

Faena died at 10:30am this morning. Her grave was completed at 5pm.

A couple dozen family members gathered in a line, and the mourners formed another line to shake hands with each of them. No one was crying anymore, with only sniffles or a wet stream upon one’s face as evidence that there were once tears.

As I walked back to the house, a woman whom I’d recognized from Monday’s bride price ceremony shook my hand. I would be seeing her later this evening at another loved dinner. A warm smile spread across her face as her eyes glittered and she said, “Afta, bai yumi danis [later, we’ll dance].”