THE FUNERAL
Today at 2pm was Shazard�s funeral. Phaedra, her boyfriend Ravi and I went to his house for the sad occasion. Not too many people were there at the time we arrived (around 1:35pm). Phaedra and I had taken the afternoon off from work and ducked out on a pretty pointless meeting. There was a shed over his front yard and it was there that two columns of chairs had been placed with an empty walkway down the centre. In the next door neighbour�s yard, a tent had been erected and chairs placed under it. The three of us found chairs at the back and settled down to wait for the hearse to arrive. I could see his mother and sister and some other relatives sitting in the porch up ahead. His mother was slouched in a chair, her face drawn with grief.
I was just sitting there; the atmosphere was dense with loaded silence and clouded with sorrow. We were waiting and waiting, stewing in the heat and nursing our troubled minds and broken hearts. I kept wiping the beads of sweat that were continuously rolling down from my scalp and down the bridge of my nose. Do you ever notice how humid it always is when a funeral is taking place? I suddenly observed that very random fact today. My skin was sticky, my mouth was dry and my heart was heavy as I kept blotting my sweaty face with my last Kleenex.
Then quite suddenly, 2 things simultaneously occurred. A heart-breaking wailing began and Phaedra whispered in my ear that the hearse was coming.
I trained my eyes on the distant hilltop road and saw a white hearse making its way down. I felt like I was choking on the sobs which were lodged in my throat. My eyes burned with tears that, for some odd reason, refused to fall.
Less than a minute later, the hearse pulled up in front of the house. Since we were sitting at the back, we got the morbid honour of seeing them take the coffin out of the back of the death-mobile. Even now, I can feel the bile rising in my throat as I recall the horrific feeling of watching them remove my old friend and mentor from the back of a hearse in a coffin. Not even a coffin I thought. More like��.a box. Well we all know my views on coffins. I don�t call them coffins. I call them what they really are. Boxes.
He was out of the hearse and they began to carry the box down the walkway and to the front of the entire grief-stricken assembly. Again I felt as if I were choking on my sobs. The tears prickled uncomfortably in my eyes. Why weren�t they running freely down my face? Why?
The wind was blowing and it shifted the small handkerchief-sized cloth covering his face. Phaedra said that she saw his face at that moment. Thank God that I didn�t. I don�t know if I could�ve handled it. I�ve always thought that I was the type of person that needed closure. Closure like seeing the deceased person�s face. Just to convince myself that, �yes. They really are gone�. But this time I didn�t particularly want my eyes to behold his eternally sleeping countenance. I just didn�t want to see it. I just didn�t. I knew he was gone, but I wanted my eyes to deceive me. And the only way that could happen, is if I didn�t look at all.
When the pall-bearers reached the front, they put down 2 wooden stilts and placed the box on it. Then they put 4 chairs instead for a steadier surface to rest the box on. The placed it down and uncovered his face I think. I didn�t see that last part because some people up front were blocking.
Truth be told, I was glad.
At this point, his sister led his mother down the rickety front steps to stand in front of his coffin. Ugh! I hate that word!
His mother is sort of a large woman, but it was funny how she looked so frail and weak that day. Grief does horrible things to people.
The programme began and more and more people arrived. Looking at their faces I realized that most of the mourners were teenagers or young adults like me.
As I listened to Arabic prayers being recited out loud, I could feel my face contort in anguish. I can feel it even now as I type these words. Under the pain, memories of him were forcing themselves up into my head. His voice, his face, his laugh, his crazy boasting that always had everyone rolling their eyes and laughing in bemusement, his sage advice, his genius, his passionate speeches��.
These words being written are blurring right now as tears fill my eyes. How can I get over this? How? How many more have to die Lord? How many more?
When the Arabic recitation was over, a very famous Islamic teacher; Maulana Ahmad Saddiq Nasir, a man who Shazard respected and looked up to enormously, lead Jannazah for my old friend. Jannazah is the funeral prayer. Most of the Muslim men performed Jannazah Salaat, while some just looked on.
After the prayers I had finally made up my mind to walk up the aisle and look at his face, but I realized by the commotion taking place around the body�������.
And here I have to stop for a minute and say this. For this entire narrative I�ve tried to refrain from using certain words. Words that make me sick. Words like; coffin and body and dead. I feel physically ill when I have to use those words when actually speaking and writing. I feel sick because it�s my friend I�m speaking about here and not some random person or a piece of meat. And it hurts me deeply that he is gone and that whenever I speak of him it will be in the past tense or only to reminisce. The pain I feel is��familiar. It�s my old friend Misery come to visit me again. He slips over me as easily as a glove. Only this time he is tighter than I remember. Translation: the feeling of despair, grief, sadness, loss whatever you want to call it, is worse than before. I don�t know why, but it just is.
So let me continue from where I left off���������..there was a commotion taking place around�.Shazard (there that�s better) and I realized that they were hoisting the box again. This time taking it down the aisle instead of up. They were putting him back in the hearse, ready to drive to the cemetery to bury him
(bury is another one of those words that I really hate)
The wailing began again as they put him into the hearse. I felt my heart crumbling and my steps faltering, as I heard his mother crying out in pain.
Shazard, why did you have to go?
Did you see what you left behind?
Lord do you see what you made him leave behind?
I hope You have given him every comfort that he never had when he was with us.
I hope he is happy where he is. He was good man. One of the best among us.
We miss you Shazard. We miss you