In March this year I went to my first funeral for someone close to me. My friend was 31 when he died. He and my dad share a birthday and a lot of similar traits. Magnetic, stormy, contemplative, funny, troubled. I don’t want to talk about my father. Watch the room go silent cause he is top on my list of non-forgiveness. Hi Daddy. I hate you.

For a gal who’s never had a proper experience with human grief this was my year. My friend dying ripped the heart right out of me. I can’t talk about it. I still think I took it unnecessarily hard. So the western grieving process that I experienced was pretty non denominational. His family is orthodox Christian but there was no religious service. I found out he died on Saturday by the following Friday we were burying him. I was standing in the funeral parlour looking at the same rotating Facebook images of him projected on the TV above the coffin (closed) while Billy Jean by Michael Jackson played and I tried not to faint or hurl up my guts. My ex bf was this friend’s best friend. We’re definitive exes. That’s what happens when you tattoo your boyfriend’s name to your body and vice versa. Hahaha I actually don’t regret that believe it or not. I mean it was dumb but fine. We were kids.

Funerals have this inbuilt hierarchy that I find interesting. My ex bf got such an outpouring of sympathy and I by default of being perpetually labelled ‘his girl’ in everyone’s collective memory (even though we’ve now been broken up longer than we were together) was also in this really weird position of unwanted attention. It was another thing we had to do together. What is love but shared trauma? I stood by his side and acted as the breaker to the people trying to comfort him. He’s not one for comfort. He’s one for open hostility. That was hard. It was the same level of attention my dead friend’s former girlfriends got. Like oh YOU are close to the dead. YOU are the saddest. It is the HARDEST for this group. Fuck me when I heard his grandmother’s wails I thought I would die. It took more than one valium to get me to that fucking hole in the ground burial site. Ever looked into a hole with a coffin holding a human life that you loved. Brutal like a chasm that might suck you in if you step too close. Or maybe you’ll jump. Vertigo fear of jumping not falling. Then we were done.

The funeral process here is specific. Respect is shown to the dead in the most specific ways. My Uncle is my cousin’s padrino (godfather) this is a big deal. Our family’s involvement makes more sense.

The ultimo is the last day of the 9-day novena (this is the 9 day prayer vigil I was talking about). My mother tells me that you can technically bury the dead whenever but the ultimo is when the final novena is said and ends in people eating. And by eat she means feast. Serve food. Lots of food.

So you have the ultimo (final prayer) and the entierro (‘internment’- the physical burial). When you intern the deceased at the cemetery you also hand out a snack. When my grandfather died all my mother remembers is making millions of chicken sandwiches to hand out at the cemetery for after the entierro. Cause again it’s a process that requires sustenance.

My cousin’s mortorio is being held at his wife’s grandparent’s house. The ultimo prayer is said at 11 am. It goes for an hour. His kids hand out a snack after. I can’t eat. The body is then transferred to the church. There is a mass. Another hour. Two incredibly traumatic events stand out. The first is after the mass. People here usually insist on having an open casket for viewing. Lucky he didn’t get shot in the face is what I think. His face is serene behind glass and he looks like a preserved mummy. He is. It’s formaldehyde. Everyone in the church lines up, and you spray holy water over the coffin as you say your last goodbye. My cousin had problems with addiction too and it feels a bit like my friend’s funeral. You can divide the room into family, recovered friends and friends in recovery. My grandmother is pleased that there are lots of people, the same turnout as Sunday mass. Very good.

The second awful thing to happen is after the holy water goodbyes his family assembles by the coffin and they take the world’s saddest family portrait with the coffin. His wife is crying, his kids are crying except the twins they are too young to understand. Who the hell wants a picture of their tear stained face next to a coffin. It is so morbid it makes me unwell. Then we walk to the local cemetery. It’s maybe ten minutes.

When we arrive at the cemetery there is a brief prayer and his friends act as pallbearers. The cemetery is rocky and uneven at parts so they end up deciding to carry him as opposed to wheeling him. I am touched. His friend makes an executive decision through tears and determination ‘we’re carrying him to the grave, it’s too bumpy, he’ll be disturbed’. This is when they will finally close the casket. The grave site is towards the front of the cemetery it is rough terrain, my grandmother refers to this part of the cemetery as the apartments because the people buried there are stacked one above another. It is not like the part of the cemetery where my grandfather is buried that shit is palatial. Seriously, some people live in less nice houses than the sepulchres in the cemetery. The sun is unbearable it’s the hottest part of the day. They continue carrying him with the steady delicacy of someone living.

I didn’t get the memo and I’m wearing all black. Everyone else is wearing white. I’m grateful my grandmother insisted I take an umbrella for shade, though I’m sure that it is also partly motivated by her attempts to keep me as fair as possible until her birthday party and subsequent pictures.

Fun fact- I stood at the grave until they sealed the tomb with cement. Traumatic event the third. My Uncle is his godfather. I told you we’re top of the death hierarchy. The final traumatising experience of the day. I ate noodles at a gravesite and a child asked me where her dead father is going. Honey I do not know.

I’m standing a few feet back from the workmen who are sealing his tomb (this takes ages) and his wife’s family starts handing out takeaway containers and water. I take the water and the food and hand the food to my mother to hold. She’s sitting in the shade further back. I assume the food in take away containers is for people to take home but then they start eating by the grave… I personally have no appetite. The second time they pass by I’m empty handed still and I see his wife point at me and hear her say ‘you forgot her, give her food’, Jennifer is really attached to my family cause we respect her and she singles me out to make sure she’s paying due diligence with this noodle offering. Caught in the cultural cross fire my mother looks at me and says you already have noodles. Why did you take more? and I whisper that I think I’m supposed to eat them, I have to. Jennifer just pointed at me and is watching me. I polite ate fucking noodles at a grave. It was horrendous also cause it was proud and dignified.

The noodles make me sad. There’s no meat and that’s not cause of food safety m8. That’s lack of cash. Lack of cash is also evident by the singular slice of cut white bread with the noodles to fill it out. By serving a ‘meal’ instead of a snack it signifies that there will be no invitation back to the house to eat. By holding the ultimo before the entierro it signifies that there will be no invitation back to the house to eat. It feels so honest and earnest that it might break me or I’ll choke to death on this food that I can barely keep down. Then we are done.

My Uncle sends their family food because they are too ‘tired’ to be cooking but it’s cause they are too poor and it all helps and he doesn’t humiliate them with charity because we all know having an ultimo before an entierro saves money but is shameful. Tomorrow we will celebrate my grandmother’s birthday with more noodles but this time they will taste like life instead of death. Fuck me can we chill with the food. My stomach can’t handle the scandal.

XX SJ