We went to bury my friend’s mother and came back with the body. She died of organ failure on Monday and burial was supposed to be on Tuesday. For reasons best known to her, she asked that she is buried at a cemetery. She didn’t want to be buried at her ancestral home.
The family decided to have her buried at the cemetery in Kisubi. They also contracted a Funeral Services home to help with the burial arrangements. The funeral home stipulated that a deposit is paid and the rest they would handle, which the family did. The balance was to be paid on Tuesday in the morning before the burial. Part of what they were supposed to do was to also supervise the digging of the grave and they were paid the money for this. It was the responsibility of the funeral home to pay the undertakers at the cemetery.
Burial was planned for 4 pm. By noon on Tuesday, the grave had not been dug. When the daughter of the deceased called the funeral home, she was told it was not the responsibility of the service to supervise the digging of the grave. But we paid you the money for that, shouldn’t you be the ones to supervise this? She asked. The funeral home was adamant.
She had been the one taking care of their mother for the two months she was in the hospital. She spent every single day of those two months in hospital. When their mother died, she had cried her voice hoarse, and as a result, got flu and cough. She had had several conversations with their mother and she received the instructions of what she desired to be done, after her death.
Her mother’s relatives had not been pleased to learn that she didn’t want to be buried at their ancestral home. Her daughter had been at the receiving end of the questions and accusations. They threatened, commanded and ordered them to have the body taken home. Amidst tears and distress, she told them that she couldn’t do that. The instruction from their mother had been clear. She wanted to be buried in a cemetery and they were going to respect her last wish.
The daughter tried the best she could to have them start digging the grave, the undertaker agreed. He however asked that we postpone the burial by an hour. He was reminded that these are times of curfew and we were mindful of the time, we wanted the convenience for the mourners to travel back to their homes at a godly hour.
He suggested that we get hospital letters and an introductory letter from the area chairman and make copies so that the people have a document to show the authorities in case we had to travel past curfew time. The daughter calmly told him that she wasn’t able to do it. “I am grieving my mother, while that is a brilliant idea, I am not in the state of mind to move around and do all that. Kindly do all that you can so that we can send our mother off”, she reasoned. The rest of us were new to the area since had gathered at her home to set off from there and couldn’t be of much help. The rest of her family was running errands elsewhere. However, by this time, the tiles to be used had not yet been delivered by the funeral home, neither did they have anyone representing them at the cemetery to supervise what was going on.
We set off at about 2:45 since burial had been postponed to 5 pm. On arrival at the cemetery, we found another group of people that were sending off their pastor.
The funeral home finally arrived at the cemetery, only with the hearse and two pallbearers.
Our grave had not yet been built. There were only 3 undertakers who had now been assigned to help the first group. Since the funeral home had paid them late, and they had begun digging the grave late as well.
When the burial of the first group was done, they started to work on the graveyard. It was around 4 pm and we were told to wait for 2 hours. One by one, the mourners moved off to get something to eat. The gentleman from the funeral home suggested that we come back tomorrow to bury since it was running late. No one agreed with him and the short-tempered almost bit his ears off, we managed to keep calm.
At around 5:45 pm, the funeral home van drove off with the body and returned it to the funeral home. I had gone with a friend to grab a bite with a friend, and so we were only speculating about what was happening. Then the rest of the mourners started driving off. Only close family members remained to discuss the way forward.
They decided to go to the funeral home offices to sort the matter out. It felt surreal that we would go for burial and not bury, we were shocked and outraged so we decided to accompany them as well. By the time the car I which I had travelled arrived, the first group had gotten there before us and had already confronted Diana the lady that has served them.
For a family that was grieving, in a lot of pain and traumatised that they didn’t bury their mom when they should, Diana did little to empathize and ease their pain.
Her attitude was despicable, to say the least. First of all, she had refused to pick up their calls before they reached the funeral home. When confronted, she was evasive and defensive in her responses and plain out refused to lead them to her superiors when they asked her to. When a scuffle finally ensued, Diana screamed, “It is too much. Everyone will die after all.”
You could hear a pin drop and all of a sudden, voices rose all at once. Her co-workers rushed to stand as a buffer between her and the grieving family. The manager who had up to that time been absent suddenly appeared and asked they have a conversation in his office. All the phones that had been switched off were now surprisingly accessible.
Between the funeral home management and the family, they managed to reach an agreement. The funeral home refunded some money, which would help facilitate some of the next day’s activities. They also promised that they would deliver better services the next day. They forgot to bring the wreaths. “They must have sold them off already”, people started to whisper. We laughed it off as a joke and paranoia from yesterday.
The wreaths were finally delivered, one wreath was missing. “That one was sold”, whispered my friend. I nodded in agreement. We were taking no prisoners. We had however had enough drama the previous day to carry it forward. Everyone was calm and the burial proceeded as scheduled.
To differ from the day before, there were four pallbearers smartly dressed in two-piece suits, ready to assist. After the burial, one of them approached the daughter and apologized for all that had gone wrong. All had been forgiven.
“We missed burying mother on Hero’s day. We desired to send her off as the hero that she was”, said one of the other children solemnly.
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