Mortuary experience is necessary to understand the vanity of life. I cried out last year January when I had my first mortuary experience at New Adeoyo hospital, Ring Road, Ibadan, where the remains of my late father, Bishop Dr. Segun Oyewale was deposited. I saw men and women packed like dried fishes. Some on the bare floor, some on the wood. All naked, lifeless, powerless.
I stopped worrying, I stopped running, I stopped fighting, I stopped gathering by force….. I begin to live with consciousness of vanity, the consciousness of nothingness. So when, like scavengers, some people were rushing to sell properties left by the deceased off, thinking I would react, I just laughed, because the first question one must ask is “where is the owner”? Of course, what is the essence of life? Building edifices? I will go for impact!
So many would have changed mind if they visit mortuary today. The elders misbehaving should be recommended for such visit. The fathers gallivanting should be stylishly baited to visit, the thug doing land grabbing will understand salvation message fast on a visit. It is a place of fear for one’s end. Get me a monster witch and I will take her on a journey. She would beg for a cover at her last end, when she can no more fly. Mortuary is a dreadful place.
I heard my mum said recently, ” never allow my body to sleep one day in mortuary when I am gone “.
I saw myself fighting others for prompt burial of my late dad last year after my visit. I was forced to study extensively the reaction of soul or the turmoil of soul when its body has not been given back to the mother earth, then I concluded, the best form of burial is as its been practiced by Muslims. Your clothes, foods, no more their concern. The mortal body must put on the immortality.
We all need to learn to help our dead ones to start their rest as soon as possible. Meanwhile, our rests as living starts the day we adopt the deep message of man’s end in this physical body.
This rest experience is sweet!
Oyewale Oyegoke writes from Ibadan, Oyo state
