How dull it was. Watching the lifeless ocean sway erratically, from high up the grassy slope by the abandoned prayer house, only two days after the ashes of her burnt body had been brought back from the crematorium for final rites. Now she was, if you looked at it that way, somewhere out there, scattered and spread all over the ocean, with an abundance and generosity that was never her character. I wasn’t responsible for what happened. Her refusal to leave things be. It may have been one of the sisters. I would never put things like this past them. At the funeral, which took place just a few metres behind me, in the light drizzle that fell, I was watching them. Beautiful. Suitably mournful. Huddled together, away from everyone else. But their eyes couldn’t hide it. They had it in for her since young. I know because she’d told me that a few times. On our few holidays away from this place. And these people.
But did you see the look I was getting? I’m not surprised she became the kind of person she was at the end of her life, famous in a way, alone in many others, due to her background. This was her background. This prayer house built in the early 20th century and still proudly maintained although the only prayers were funerals of people who hadn’t requested to be buried elsewhere. From the slope you can see the edges of the roofs of the township below. And the ocean. Right there before us, far away and dull. I’ll miss her. But I doubt these people would.
photo from unsplash.com by Erik Jan-Leusink
