September 17, 2007
The Nicaraguan way of death
I went to a Nicaraguan funeral last week. It was for the sister of one of the CEPAD drivers who has become a good friend. Like many others here, she died young (only 51 years old) from a problem that could have been controlled long ago if the family had had the money for doctors and medicines.
One thing that I noticed about the whole experience is how people here seem so much more accepting and open about death than the people with whom I've worked in the United States. In more than 35 years as a pastor (mostly a small-town, small-church pastor) I have officiated at hundreds of funerals, but in almost all of them the family and closest friends were protected from seeing anything that might remotely look like the reality of death.
When this woman died early yesterday morning the family called a funeral home, which brought a casket to the house. Family members helped them clean and dress the body and put her in the casket. Chairs were brought in and set up in the house and yard, and friends (including our whole office) came to the house to pay our respects. Often people keep coming late into the night. My experience in the United States has been quite different.
In the United States, very few of the people I’ve known have died at home; they usually die in a hospital or nursing facility. If family members and friends are not present at the moment of death, the hospital or nursing home will quickly move the body so as not to upset the other patients. The family and friends first see the body after it has been cleaned up, made up, hair set, and dressed in the person’s best clothes. We hide from the fact that death is often smelly, dirty, and not very pretty to look at. The “calling hours” are announced by the funeral home, and people go home shortly afterward.
Most people don’t pay for embalming here, so funerals are done quite quickly. This morning (less than 30 hours after her death) the family and friends left the house for the cemetery, following the pickup truck that carried the casket. We walked very slowly to the music of a mariachi band. (In my years as a pastor in the United States I’ve only seen one live band at a graveside service, a Dixieland band hired by the husband to play some of the deceased wife’s favorite music.)
At the graveside, the casket was laid on a plain pile of dirt (no fake grass to hide it) and opened. Many people knelt and prayed or placed a flower in the casket. I noticed that the capillaries had already started to break down causing a trickle of blood from her nose. Finally, her husband stood on the pile next to the casket and thanked everyone for coming. He read John 11:24-27 and spoke of his (and his dead wife’s) faith in Jesus as “the way, the truth and the life.” Then, as the band played some more, four cemetery workers closed the casket, placed ropes under it, and lowered it into the concrete container. Then they went to work mixing a small batch of concrete to seal the container and shoveled in the dirt. All the time the family stood and watched. Sometimes in rural areas, all of this is done by family members.
I remembered the line that I’ve heard hundreds of times from several funeral directors in the United States, “This completes the services for So-and-so. The grave will be cared for as soon as we depart from the cemetery.” Then everyone leaves so that the family doesn't see the casket lowered into the ground, the vault sealed, or the dirt shoveled in.
Death for us has been cleaned up and sanitized as it became a part of the realm of professionals. Funeral directors are experts in the use of make-up so that we hear things like, “He looks better than he has for a long time.” Or “She looks like she is just asleep.” We don’t see the blood or the look of pain or fear on someone’s face. But by protecting ourselves from the possibility of fear or pain, we also miss the opportunity to see the look of contentment or peace that dying people so often have. Maybe it reminds us too much of our own fears of death.
Nicaraguans understand death. Years of dictatorial oppression and finding tortured bodies dumped alongside the road were followed by ten years of a war against the U.S.-funded Contras. In this war, the targets were not military installations but schools, medical clinics, and young literacy teachers. Nicaraguans have seen plenty of death, and don't seem as obsessed as we U.S. people are with pretending that it is clean and pretty.
I am glad to live with this sense of reality and of faith. Death is a fact for all of us. We can struggle to keep it away. We can protect ourselves from seeing it, but the reality is still there. We are all gong to die. The people we love are all going to die. It isn’t always pretty, but it is always real.
Do we as Christians need to hide from this reality? Or can we face it with calmness, assurance and faith? This morning I heard a grieving husband talk about his faith in Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life.” Can we learn from our Nicaraguan brothers and sisters to live in the same faith?
Doug
The 2007 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 58 |
