THE LAMBENT SOUND

By OMOSEYE BOLAJI

I had attended the formal burial ceremonies in the South African
Church. Of course I had to. My good friend, a prominent, elderly South
African Black author had lost one of his daughters who had succumbed
to serious illness. My plan was to go straight to his house whilst the
funeral procession made its way to the graveyard.

But my friend came to me outside the Church and said in his direct
manner: “Enter the car. We’ll go to the graveyard together. I’ll
drive,” I thought there would be other people inside his car, but this
was not so. We made our way to the burial ground some fifteen minutes
away.

“You know this graveyard of course,” he said. I nodded gravely. It was
not an admission one would be enamoured to go into details over. He
parked the car, whilst the hordes – in many other vehicles – arrived
at the graveyard.

“This way, Bolaji,” my friend, the writer said. “Follow me.” We made
our way past a plethora of graves arranged lineally. He went on, as we
arrived near a sizeable heap of sand near an open grave...“Just stand
beside me. It’s not easy, but all the arrangements have been made over
the week, and this is the finale...” I admired his extraordinary
fortitude and usual painstaking eye for detail. Why, it was his
daughter being buried!

As we positioned ourselves near the pertinent grave, the lambent,
melancholy, sombre music reached a peak against the backdrop of a
litany of priests making speeches and praying. It was haunting,
piercing music and I felt the tears coming to my eyes.

Yet the patriarch himself, the bereaved father (my writer friend)
stood strong beside me on the left as the final rites of his
daughter’s burial intensified. He gave me a small bottle of cold water
which I did not touch; just placed in my lower jacket pocket. I looked
at the nearby tent and those close to the bereaved were there, many of
them crying.

The other surviving sister of the deceased – daughter of my friend,
the writer - broke down temporarily and cried, together with her own
young daughter. What it was to lose a sibling; a sister! And my mind
uncontrollably went to when I lost my own brother who died so
prematurely too!

And I could no longer contain myself, and the tears flowed. The
melancholy music augmented my grief and I felt a bit embarrassed
crying in public. But I could hardly help it, and nobody was concerned
about me anyway.

Oh, my own brother, Omotayo! Barrister at law, humanist, and
intellectual! What a blow to hear that he had died after a brief
illness years ago too! How right the likes of Shakespeare were to
refer to life as: “Out! Out brief candle...”

But now the rest of the burial rites were taking place here in South
Africa...the coffin being lowered, the frenetic, comprehensive sounds
of spades and shovels as sundry people poured sand onto the coffin.
Flowers. Tombstone unveiled, a few other short speeches. Earth to
earth. Dust to dust...lambent music...threnody...