Reflections on Family, Loss, and Shared Moments: Capturing Memories at a Recent Burial

Recently, one of my uncles died; although I don't have a close relationship with him, I know his kids very well. They are far older than I am, but we have quite a relationship with each other. They are all grown, except for the first two sons, who are already married and also have good jobs.

I went to the burial last week and was trying to imagine how it was to lose their father, who has died at the age of 62. The whole burial was dry, as nobody was happy with the loss. I wasn't happy as well because I had only had a few interactions with the man and had not gotten to know him as well as I knew his kids.

The whole burial happened in Abeokuta, which is also the hometown of the man. Luckily for me, the location of the programme happens to be not very far from my place, and it looked like somewhere that I would be able to reach.

The whole programme was on Friday, and I happened to be having class through the day. As I was done with the first class, I noticed the lecturers who were meant to take my colleagues and me were not around, and they were sending messages not to be available.

This gave me the opportunity to leave for the programme, and I got there in time. I met my parents and other family members that I have not met in a while. The last time I saw them was during the death of my grandmother, when everybody had to come around.

The whole programme was very short; they started the programme, and in less than 2 hours after the programme started, they had buried the man. People were asked to look at the man's face one last time before he was buried, but I couldn't go as I didn't want to have a stream of thoughts in my head.

I had the opportunity to take pictures with my other cousins who were around. Here are some of the pictures we were able to take before leaving the programme.