One of my best friends here lost her father unexpectedly last week. Another good friend lost her father about a month ago. Being taught while growing up that grieving with people, close to them, is important prepared me well for how grieving is done in this culture.
Naturally, the grieving process starts the day the person dies. Grieving is public, not private. The home of the deceased one immediately becomes the place the women mourn. It's an automatic open house.
The men mourn in the neighborhood "hall." They sit together for three days.
The women sit together for nine days. The immediate family members stay the whole time. The close family members may stay for hours at a time. The neighbors are in and out daily. And people who are not as close in relationship or geography come and go. The normal length to sit is half an hour or so.
The gate is always open. It's fine to walk in without ringing the bell. You go around the room in a circle, greeting each woman. You linger with the family members of the deceased, and if you know how to say the right words, you say things like, "How are you?" "God relieve your grief," "God bless you," "God help you." Then you take your place in the circle of women and sit. Sometimes the women read their holy book. The matriarch of the neighborhood often remained for long hours reading the holy book in a whisper.
The sitting is a powerful lesson in the ministry of presence. Because you don't necessarily say anything further to the family members. You're just there. Loving them. Supporting them. Saying by being there that you care.
The first day is the worst. "I don't like to go the first day," one friend told me. "There's so much crying." There was a lot of crying the first day at this latest mourning. It was pretty awful. Not wailing, like there might be in some other parts of the region. But open, raw grief.
Each subsequent day is generally a bit calmer. More chatter. More lightness. It's the grieving, comforting, healing process at work.
Sometimes you take coffee and dates and fruit after sitting a while. I think it was day five before I even saw my friend eat. On day five, she invited me to take coffee with her, and I did. Her eating told me that she was doing a bit better, and I was happy to celebrate this piece of healing with her.
Sometimes I wonder if the family members get bored. They seem to just sit. All. Day. Long. For nine days. (And sometimes I wonder if it's hard on introverts. Because there is pretty much no privacy. Though the culture isn't generally introvert-friendly in any other aspect of life. Think normal for two or three late-teen or adult children to share a room, even guys and girls.) But an American friend and I discussed it this morning, and we concluded that there's some benefit in that. Because you really face the pain. You have long hours to think about it. You see the people who love you come. And your neighbors and close relatives come again and again and again. And probably at the end of the nine days, you're really ready to return to normal life.
In the U.S., the visiting hours and funeral are usually over so fast. There's the rush of preparation leading up to the funeral, but then, boom, it's done and you're back to normal life. Except that life will never be normal again.
Of course nine days of official mourning doesn't erase the overarching pain more than one or two days of official mourning does. But it has been interesting to be part of the community surrounding a grieving family, and to see how the process works here.
Naturally, the grieving process starts the day the person dies. Grieving is public, not private. The home of the deceased one immediately becomes the place the women mourn. It's an automatic open house.
The men mourn in the neighborhood "hall." They sit together for three days.
The women sit together for nine days. The immediate family members stay the whole time. The close family members may stay for hours at a time. The neighbors are in and out daily. And people who are not as close in relationship or geography come and go. The normal length to sit is half an hour or so.
The gate is always open. It's fine to walk in without ringing the bell. You go around the room in a circle, greeting each woman. You linger with the family members of the deceased, and if you know how to say the right words, you say things like, "How are you?" "God relieve your grief," "God bless you," "God help you." Then you take your place in the circle of women and sit. Sometimes the women read their holy book. The matriarch of the neighborhood often remained for long hours reading the holy book in a whisper.
The sitting is a powerful lesson in the ministry of presence. Because you don't necessarily say anything further to the family members. You're just there. Loving them. Supporting them. Saying by being there that you care.
Each subsequent day is generally a bit calmer. More chatter. More lightness. It's the grieving, comforting, healing process at work.
Sometimes you take coffee and dates and fruit after sitting a while. I think it was day five before I even saw my friend eat. On day five, she invited me to take coffee with her, and I did. Her eating told me that she was doing a bit better, and I was happy to celebrate this piece of healing with her.
Sometimes I wonder if the family members get bored. They seem to just sit. All. Day. Long. For nine days. (And sometimes I wonder if it's hard on introverts. Because there is pretty much no privacy. Though the culture isn't generally introvert-friendly in any other aspect of life. Think normal for two or three late-teen or adult children to share a room, even guys and girls.) But an American friend and I discussed it this morning, and we concluded that there's some benefit in that. Because you really face the pain. You have long hours to think about it. You see the people who love you come. And your neighbors and close relatives come again and again and again. And probably at the end of the nine days, you're really ready to return to normal life.
In the U.S., the visiting hours and funeral are usually over so fast. There's the rush of preparation leading up to the funeral, but then, boom, it's done and you're back to normal life. Except that life will never be normal again.
Of course nine days of official mourning doesn't erase the overarching pain more than one or two days of official mourning does. But it has been interesting to be part of the community surrounding a grieving family, and to see how the process works here.
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