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Mid-August is my morbid time of year, when I remember my dearest dead like my mom who passed away many years ago on a Thurday date exactly like yesterday’s – August 18th.
A week or so ago, on Facebook, I recalled the day of my brother’s death in some detail.
And amidst all the tearful emojis and comments of commemoration, which were much appreciated, one wannabe sympathizer wrote – ‘I hope your brother continues resting in peace.’
And I thought – ‘as opposed to what?’ Waking up to walk around in the cemetery? Going to haunt old haunts in the old Nairobi West neighborhood?
Truth be told, I have always found it a little wannabe, not to mention lazy, when someone dies and someone close to the deceased posts the sad news on social media, a third party – many of them – simply post ‘RIP!’
When the Grim Reaper strikes, the last thing anyone wants to see is ‘RIP.’ That is very lazy ‘poles.’
RIP is a verb that means ‘to rend violently apart or slash, slit, gash, split or rent.’
So are you telling folks, when you say ‘may they RIP,’ that may your dead person go tearing things, cutting them open or otherwise rending them swiftly and forcibly apart, like a poltergeist?
Ok, so it is an acronym, RIP – for Rest In Peace. But you get my gist and catch the drift. Try and be less lazy by actually making your comment one of comfort that shows you put some thought (and heart) into it. RIP is like letting rip a fart – and lazy as hell.
Or as lazy as ‘HBD.’
I mean, do you ever feel cared for when on your birthday, some lazy wannabe writes ‘HBD’ on your wall? If you are too lazy to type ‘Happy Birthday’ (what are you gonna do with the eleven letters you saved? Form a football team?), better just ‘like’ the birthday post, instead of bothering with ‘HBD.’
Another thing wannabes do around the bereaved is telling them to ‘be strong,’ as if berating them for their grief.
People who have just lost a loved one are allowed not to be ‘strong.’ They should be allowed to weep till their eyes turn a tragic red, blow noses, and try to get that lump in the throat to go down and that ache in the heart to go away.
Often, that ache will stay in your heart for years, long after your tears for the beloved have dried up.
‘They are in a better place.’ Another phrase of condolence that I do not like, from well-meaning wannabes. No they are not! I am currently reading a book called ‘Cemetery Stories’ by Kathy Ramsland.
When the dead first die, the blood settles in the parts of the body that are the closest to the ground. The eyes flatten, the skin becomes waxy, before rigor mortis sets in. In the long run, even beneath the ground, the skin will blister from bacterial gases and burst open, the internal organs come apart and liquefy, and the body begin leaking badly from every orifice. How is this state of biological horror a better place, pray do tell?
I can get casket gazing as people take one last look at the Dear Departed (although some creepy people stare for so long, holding up the queue, it is like they are window shopping for a corpse). But this latest trend by some tasteless wannabes of taking pictures of the dead – from funerals to the scene of an accident – is simply outright ghoulish!
