Another Life Ends: Reflections from Across the Street

It’s another morning after another restless night. I’m up because, what else is there to do? Roll around in the sheets, clutch my pillow as if it were a person, read a book, check my phone, stare at the wall or ceiling, wonder what the people above and below my apartment are doing? Yeah, I’ve done all that, and it’s still not enough.

I figured I might as well get a head start on cleaning, but when I walked into the living room, I found myself engrossed by the activity at the funeral home across the street. There are procession cars lined up outside, pallbearers in black suits, and family members dressed in cream. A few children stand nearby, holding their parents’ hands.

I watch as a white coffin draped in flower garlands is carried out. Once again, I am filled with awe and disbelief that the entirety of a person’s life is somehow contained in that box, about to be buried six feet under. For some, it is a coffin. For others, ashes. For others, a body wrapped in plain cloth. Different forms, same outcome. 

It is over.

Watching the procession of cars slowly leave the lot reminds me of the last funeral procession I was part of, which was my beloved grandmother’s. And, as the visceral reminder of death always does, it brings me back to a question I can never quite answer: what is the point of life?

Everything ends, of course. But even for people who believe death is not truly the end, whether through resurrection, reincarnation, crossing into other realms, or whatever else is out there, there is still a finality to it.

The people who leave can no longer interact with us or with life as they once did. Even if they reincarnate, they cannot remember their past lives. And when they do, like the Àkúdàáyá in my tribe’s lore, they still cannot interact with the people they once knew. So, this specific life is over, whether they want it to be or not. Or, at least, it is over for us. Because even if they resurrect or reincarnate, they aren’t here in a form we know, can see, or can touch.

However, I think one of the things I struggle with most is the question of remembrance.

Do the dead remember?

Because if they don’t, then what is the point? You leave behind people who remember you, who are either deeply pained by your absence or secretly relieved by your demise, but you don’t remember them. You no longer remember the love you shared, the people you met, your victories and failures, the moments that shaped you. If all of that disappears, then for you, in what sense were you ever here?

I remember after my mum died, people would stand by her grave and say, “Iya Tutu, ma gbagbe awon omo e. Ma sun o.” Which translates to: “Tutu’s mum, do not forget your children. Do not sleep.”

Basically, a plea for her to remember the family she left behind. Does she remember? I don’t know. Does she hear their cries and pleas? I don’t know.

That question leads me to another: should we even try to make memories if we won’t remember them when we are dead? Or do we make memories for the people who will survive us?

But then, what if everyone you know tragically dies together? I mean, it happens, right? Or what if time does what time always does, and eventually, there is no one left to remember you at all? Sooner or later, unless you’re Albert Einstein, you are forgotten.

…

Me ready for the beach

Well, I really need to get back to my cleaning. I just read The Undomestic Goddess, and I am feeling very domestic right now. But there is still so much I want to unpack here. Like, maybe we don’t actually care if we remember, but we care that others remember us, because we all ultimately want to be remembered. Remembered as a whole, or at least for the tiny, sometimes brilliant bits that made us up.

It makes me think of the people who see procreation as the only real way to continue themselves. But again, if everyone who knows you is dead after a century, what was the point of that, either? Is it just the fragile reassurance that your lineage might continue somewhere in time? Then there are people like me, who wonder whether being truly exceptional is the only real route to immortality; again, Einstein comes to mind. You know, as I like to say, “be phenomenal or be forgotten.” 

And then back to the OG questions I don’t have answers to yet: What are we? Why are we here? And where are we going?

Uh! Okay, for real, back to cleaning.

…

Anyway, seeing a funeral home first thing in the morning is a stark reminder of life’s ephemerality. One day it all ends. Where, when, and how? Can we predict it? I mean, some astrologers claim they can, and a professor at Uniben once said in his inaugural lecture that he could. But is it true? I don’t know. And if it were true, would I even care to know? I don’t know.

I didn’t answer a single one of the questions I asked so far in this ramble. Lol.

So, here is one I do have an answer to: how am I doing today? Fantastic. The ephemerality of life reminds me to live it to the max. So, off to the beach with a bottle of wine.