Funerals

Funerals are slightly different here. I was slightly frightened the first one I went to because Haitian women do not cry, they do not sob, they do not gently pat their tears away. They wail. It is almost like a seizure. Sometimes it takes a group of four to drag the person out. After the funeral service, there is a huge procression. You walk behind the coffin, which is placed in the back of a truck, to the cemetary. One funeral I went to, there were about five hundred people. What I really love about Haitian funerals is that they wear white or black. Usually the women wear white and the men black. March has been the month of funerals here. An uncle, who was like a father to one of the teachers, a mother of three girls at school, a mother of one of the ladies in the women’s prayer group, a cousin of one of the members of the youth group, and a mother of one of the sisters in Cap Haitien. The most difficult to see was the mother of the three children because she was a young beautiful woman and left behind three beautiful girls, two of whom are just about to make their first communion in May. Now, Sr. Daniel’s father, who had a stroke two months ago, just passed away this morning of April 11. Please keep her and her family in your prayers.

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