Ojo a jina sira won — reflections from a funeral

As I sat on the thick wooden chairs inside the Christ Anglican Church at the end of the commercially active sawmill, I imagined the lives beneath the grey hairs and the bald heads that sprawled across my view. The creeds are followed by hymns that end with the long-drawn ‘Aamin…’ before a priest comes on the pulpit to reflect on the life of Coach Akinade, who was said to have accepted nonsense from no one!

We are at the funeral service held in the memory of my friend’s dad, officers of the Nigerian Army unmistakable in the car park and the light brown ‘Aso-ebi’ attires of the family unmissable. From his days in the military to becoming an athletics coach, so much was said about his integrity and insistence on high standards. Perhaps that explains why Mary finished with the first class she told me she would finish with on Day 1 in 100 level. At our off-campus Bible study with The Navigators, she would memorize the full list of verses that I still can’t fully recall ‘off-hand’ 10 years after.

I have always loved the Anglican Church and my boarding house school founded by the Ilesa Diocese gave me a closer view of the ordinances. Before I knew anything about graphic design or branding systems, I was always curious about the design of the cassocks — the coats the priests wore, and how they differed from Reverend, to Venerable, Very Reverend, Right Reverend, Most Reverend. Synod was a sight to behold, of beautiful order.

And there were the hymns. “Trust and obey… for there is no other way… to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey”, Reverend Fakankun would lead the student choristers as they slowly processed down the aisle while Soji and I did this thing called ‘parting’ with our voices. What a memory to recall as today’s closing procession held in the same slow, reflective motion. This time it included soldiers, with the casket wrapped in the National colors and a pair of military boots ‘hanged’ on top.

I remember the sermons back then were always a mix of everyday wisdom with some gospel to tie it up at the end. The priests who doubled as teachers took their opportunity to address our latest misdeeds from the classroom and dormitories, with warnings passed down this time from a holy place. It was still the same, but with the teenage dismeanors swapped with the adult ‘wickedness of the human heart’.

Stepping into an Anglican Church for the first time in many years, what touched me the most was neither a warning wrapped in the clothing of a life advice nor a headline from the good news that the gospel is. It also was not any of the reminders for us to imbibe the values Coach Akinade lived by.

It was something the priest said in passing — “Ojó á jìnà síra won”.

That was it for me. It’s not the first time I would hear that. Everyone says that when a Yoruba dies and I am sure he didn’t particularly write that as part of his sermon notes. In English, that translates to “may the days (of death) be far from one another”.

It struck me what that really meant, that all of us — the grey hairs and bald heads, the elegantly dressed ‘omo-olóòkús’ (children of the deceased), myself in the observation of events, as well as the baby whose mother just carried swiftly to the back of the auditorium as she cried for a pain she could not yet to put to words, the mother herself inclusive — have our dates of death right ahead of us at a time we have no idea of. All we could hope for, is that the next one doesn’t come tomorrow. Or even today.

Dead people attending a funeral. All of us.

Bye bye, Coach. You live on in our memories, till our own dates come.