Death and Taxes, Part 1

I knew the day would eventually come when I would have to write this post, and I’ve been dreading it.  When you've read as much about Africa as I have, you can see numbers like “24% AIDS prevalency rate” and read how in certain places in Africa “every nuclear family has had a death.”  The information is shocking – well, stunning really.  That’s what it does to you.  It stuns, then numbs you.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing statistics here.  We need statistics.  I’m only saying that statistics have a way of de-humanizing matters that deeply penetrate the human condition, things like disease and death, poverty and hunger, love and sexuality.  In many ways, I was very well prepared for our cross-cultural excursion to Swaziland.  But honestly, I wasn’t ready for Friday.

I had loaded William into the car to take him to his Friday morning play group in town.  I was running a little behind, leaving the house a few minutes after 9am.  Part of the arrangement we made with the people from whom we are renting our house is that we would continue to employ the gardener who takes care of the property.  His name is Elphas, he looks about in his forties and rides his bike one hour each way to get to our house.  He is a lovely man.  At any rate, as I was driving away from the house I saw Elphas coming down the road.  Strange, because he usually starts his work day before 8am.  As I was about to pass him, I saw him trying to flag me down.

I stopped the car, rolled down the window, and called, cheerily, “Good morning, Elphas!”

“Good morning, sir.”  [He always calls me, “sir.”]

“How are you today?”

“Oh, I’m not too good,” he said, with a distressed look on his face.

“I’m sorry, Elphas.  What’s wrong?”

“My daughter …” – and he paused for a moment –

[At this precise moment I was expecting him to say something like she was sick or was having some problem that had delayed him that morning.]

– then his voice suddenly rose an octave as he doubled over and tears leaked from his eyes.  He sobbed, “… is dead!”

Dead.  Just like that.  Never saw it coming, not even in the split-second before the word came out of his mouth.

I don’t know what I said next, something like “Oh no!” and I pulled over to the side of the road.  He was still sobbing right there on the street.  I got out of the car to stand beside him, leaving the car running, I think.  expressed my sympathy as best I could, and he stood up again, the wave having passed over. I asked if it had happened during the night, and he said it had been Wednesday night. [He doesn’t work at the house on Thursdays.]  I asked him if he needed to be at home, and he said, “yes.”  Then, in halting English, he started to tell me that he had some expenses.  I cut him off and asked if he needed us to pay him early [he normally gets paid for the month on the 25^th].  Again, he said, “yes.”  I asked him how old his daughter was, and he said, “7 years old.”

I went inside, told Allison what had happened, and she got the money, plus a little extra from us to help with the funeral expenses and such.  I gave him the money and again tried to express my sympathy as best I could, which is to say, not very well [or at least I felt that way].  I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that we would be praying for him.  “Thank you, sir,” he said.  And he left on his bicycle to pedal the hour back home.  I shuddered to think that at the end of that ride, he probably has to climb a few hundred feet (at least!) to get to his homestead on the top of a small mountain in Mpolontjeni.

Ironically enough, here in Swaziland, death is a way of life.

Less than a month ago, our househelper’s brother died, a man in his thirties who left behind a family with young children.  Every month or two, our ZBC teaching team arrives at a location to discover that a student has died.  Probably about that often, a death notice will be read in the announcements at the Anglican church.  And there are funerals constantly.  None of those other deaths really hit me, but this one did.

We Americans are simply not conditioned to deal with so much death.  When faced with the reality of it so close to home, my words hit the back of my front teeth and bounce back to form a lump in my throat.  I got back in my car and drove William to play group, then went back home and felt depressed all day long.  After a few hours I texted my friend Matthew to ask him to pray for Elphas, and that made me feel a little better that I had "done" something.  I also prayed for Elphas, berated myself for feeling bad about my own insignificant problems, wondered how on earth people find the courage to face the constant reality of death here, and cursed American culture as pansy-faced and weak.  At least, I am pansy-faced and weak.

I wish I had some poetic words to end this rant, but I don’t.  It is simply unfair that Elphas is bereaved of his daughter when both my children are alive, and there are so many things about life in which there is a similar state of affairs between him and me.  At the end of the day, I hope that remembering him, and his family, in my prayers will be enough to help them cope with the loss of their daughter and sister.  May light perpetual shine on her…