Interrupting Life and Death

There is a phrase that I have often heard and used myself in fact on a number of occasions. Its goes like this “My eyes were too big for my stomach”. This is the usual thing said after you have ordered too much food at a restaurant, or in my case cooked a big curry and put far too much on my plate I have struggled to finish it. Well on Friday night I came up with a new phrase which is quite similar: “My eyes were too big for my suitcases”. On Friday I spent the day sorting through my stuff trying to work out what to take with me to Kenya, placing each item in my parents bedroom, helping me to separate things out a bit, and well lets just say that pile got bigger and bigger and bigger. Finally at about 10pm when I got chance to actually start filling my luggage with all these things I soon began to realise a new pile was going to form just outside my parents bedroom. This pile being the ‘Just not enough space for’ pile.

Over the last few weeks I have been travelling around the UK, saying hi and goodbye to friends and family, trying to pick up various bits and pieces I will need for my work in Kenya and still finishing off work from church in Edinburgh. It has been a busy time, and the stress just caught up to me too much on Friday, with a pounding headache and sick feeling as I struggled to fit everything in my bag and as I began to anticipate what lay ahead.

So Saturday a long drive to London…still no residency permit, no house, no car, but hey I had a plane ticket and lots of people praying for me! The last time I sat in Heathrow I had a large group of teenagers with me I was taking to Kenya on a trip, that was only 2 months ago. This time I sat alone realising this time I was leaving and it was going to be a long time before I would be coming back. It is strange how the mind works. I have been waiting for about 12 months to take up this role in Kenya and it has really been a long goodbye to everyone over the last 6 months. However it has only really hit me ion the brief few seconds of hugging someone goodbye, that recognition that yes, this truly is it. Each time everything always felt normal visiting folks, until that embrace and it was like a sudden wave of emotion would hit me and I would struggle to force out any words in fear of balling my eyes out. In these moments I finally understood why this was going to be hard. It has been exciting and awesome preparing for this and I really felt ready. People would comment how brave they thought I was and how hard it must be. I would laugh it off and just thing it was normal, this was the plan, this has always been the plan in some way, this is right, doesn’t feel that hard. Well I have discovered, no its not hard, not until you actually have to say goodbye.

So long flight, usual gig, plane food, a movie, lights out and the pointless attempt at trying to get a few hours sleep. Hmmmmmm, no chance of sleep! So earphones in and some music to help me relax, Wagner at about 40,000 feet, AWESOME!

Landing in Nairobi, my heart started to pound more and more, actually that’s not quite true I think the pounding actually begun about an hour before we landed! With no residency permit yet I was relying on getting into Kenya on a 3 month short term visa. This is what you can get at the airport, but there is always the chance they could say no, especially if it conflicted with the residency application. I had filled in my forms already, got off the plane and stood in the queue. It was busy. The girl behind my desk looked in a bad mood, as other passport control officials would greet the visitors with a ‘good morning’ or a ‘how are you’ my girl just looked tired, grumpy and said nothing to no-one. This wasn’t looking good as often these things come down to the mood of the person on the day. All I could hope for was that her mind was on something else or that she was just too busy to care. I think in the end it was the latter. She barely looked at my forms, stamped everything and there I was, finally after all that stress, officially in Kenya (for at least 3 months anyway).

How can I keep this brief? The first day was incredible, and well if you getting bored already at this point all I can suggest is hang in there because this first day has to be the strangest day in my entire life, and there is no exaggeration there!

The plan was to stay with my friends David and Juliet. I have known them for many years and David was to pick me up at the airport. However on the previous day I had found out his father was seriously ill in hospital and it wasn’t looking good. So David arrange for a driver to pick me up. Francis was not at the airport, so texted David and he let me know Francis was going to be late. We met up and I asked how David and his father were, Francis did not know. We drove through Nairobi right to the other side, got to the house and there was no-one there. David’s father had died literally at the same time the wheels of my plane were touching down in Nairobi. It was so sad and David and Juliet spent a few hours at the hospital dealing with paperwork etc.

While waiting for them, I unpacked a couple of things, had some breakfast and then they returned home. It was strange, I had such excitement for being in Kenya but sorrow overtook these feelings and it was hard for all of us really to know how to react and feel. I was worried about being in the way or another burden on David and Juliet, but they are such generous people and even in a time of real tragedy they welcomed me with open arms and helped me feel at home.

The day went on, David was making arrangements on the phone for the cremation etc. A Hindu friend of his was going to help organise it and David had been thinking for quite a while that a Hindu style cremation would be just the right thing for his dad. As it turned out his friend wanted it to be done straight away, literally that day!!! So we had lunch, I showered and smartened up and we headed to the hospital to pick up his dad.

I have been to funerals before but I have never seen a dead body and I have always wondered how I would react if I ever did. Things were very rough and ready and I had to help David in the morgue collect his father onto this tray, he was wrapped up in a sheet, but this was pulled away so that David could be reassured we were taking the right person. I was amazed at how strong David was and how natural it all seemed. We wheeled the body out to a specially designed van and slide the tray in the back. We then climbed in and sat around David’s dad as we journeyed through the Nairobi streets, bumping around laughing, chatting and feeling sorrow all at the same time.

We arrived at the Hindu temple and I soon began to realise that the cremation was going to be open, not behind a curtain hidden away, but so that we could all watch. It was a quite place, nothing special in many ways, just a few tin sheds that were very tall and supported by the old railway tracks that many of the Asians would have been using to lay the railroad through Africa earlier in the last century. This sheds were very old. There were 3 iron platforms in one shed and one of these had firewood and shavings underneath and on top. The body was placed on it and David’s dad then had large pieces of wood placed around his body very carefully and over the top. You could still see is body in the shroud through the wood but he was really covered all round. At this point the tradition is to pour Ghee over the body, which is an ingredient or kind of butter fat that is used in Indian style cooking. Each of us in turn took the large ladle and poured some over the body and wood. David chose some music to play on a CD player, some choral music. He bravely said a few words and then friends followed, with Gladys reading from the bible and then some of the carers who had been looking after David’s dad in the last few months sang a song in Swahili. It was all so beautiful and special.

At this point David and one of the helpers was shown how to light the fire and they did so. It quickly took off and we moved further back as the flames grew higher. We stood in silence watching as the body was cremated right before out eyes. We moved round the corner a bit as the heat became too intense and then eventually came back to David’s house for some food. It had been a long day. I needed some sleep, having been awake for about 36 hours. After a nap I got up and found that it was just Juliet, David and myself left in the house. We reflected on the day and how it all went. For the Kenyan staff they had been more surprised by the cremation than me, for in Kenya everyone is buried, no one is cremated, at least I was used to the concept.

We talked for a while, about the funeral, how it had all happened so fast, what a crazy day it had been but also talked about my future and living here in Kenya. Although I had felt I could have just been in the way during this difficult day, Juliet has said on a number of times it had been good I was around, to help distract a bit from what was going on. On reflection myself I think she was right.

There is so much more to say, and really I must talk about the last couple of days and news about whats happening here in Kenya, the job, house car etc, but really after such an eventful first day, the only important thing is that I was very blessed to have been part of a remarkable occasion, with such a generous and loving couple and witnessing a son work so hard to do the right thing for his father in his last few days. I am sure there will be many more new experiences in the future, maybe not like this one, but I was truly blessed to witness such a beautiful ceremony.

I’ll update more in a couple of days, but I think for now that’s it. In the future the messages won’t be this long, but in some ways I feel I needed to write this down and share what happened.