Zess in Peace
I do not think that Che Lewis and Jevon Clairmont knew each, but they did have a lot in common. They both died violently. They both died young (29 and 26 respectively). And, at least from a Judeo-Christian perspective, they were both the guests of honor at unorthodox funeral services. By unorthodox I mean that their bodies were posed during transportation to and during the funeral ceremony. When I initially saw the video of Che Lewis’ body, strapped in a sitting position to a chair, which was in turn affixed to the floor of an open top hearse my initial reaction was revulsion. And, based on the social media commentary, my distaste was shared by more than a few of my countrymen. My feelings remained unchanged when sometime later I saw videos of Javon’s funeral, which had him posed, standing in a glass-fronted casket, gazing out like a life-sized Ken doll would peer out from its packaging.
As I grow as a man I am realizing that initial reactions are often incomplete at best and erroneous at worst, so recently when there were even more images circulating regarding two more funeral services with corpses displayed in non-traditional ways I forced myself to set aside my initial emotional response and pose to myself the dispassionate question of “Why?” Why was I repulsed?
Catholic Archbishop Jason Gordon, in an interview on talk radio I95.5 and as quoted in the Guardian Newspaper, referred to these unconventional funerals as “A pappyshow of the dead and a desecration of the temple of the Holy Spirit.” The archbishop is, of course, entitled to his opinion and he is charged with the important responsibility of leading his flock as he sees fit. But I flatly (and respectfully) dismissed the first half of his statement. In the Archbishop’s own religious canon, the dead are supposed to know nothing. It is thus impossible to “pappyshow” or otherwise insult a dead man. The target of the insult is, after all…dead. The worst has already happened.
I concede that you could insult the living by your treatment of their dead, but Che Lewis certainly did not don that pink dinner jacket and climb onto the back of that hearse himself. Someone(s) paid good money for that spectacle to take place, and assuming that those someones were Che’s surviving relatives and friends, then it is their opinion that matters and not the archbishop’s (#respectfully).
The second part of the archbishop’s statement triggered my lawyer’s response, and the obvious question became “How?” How could a (decently) posed corpse “desecrate the temple of the Holy Spirit”? A sitting corpse or a standing corpse might be novel but they are not fundamentally different from a corpse laying in a coffin. By comparison, a sitting corpse is pretty tame when viewed against certain funeral rites the world over. Additionally, once a body is properly embalmed, and timely buried, it should present health risks no greater than a corpse traditionally placed in a casket. Would the temple be similarly desecrated if the corpse were in a casket but laying on its side or face down? Is there only one acceptable way for a corpse to be interred? Lastly, the most significant image of the archbishop’s faith is the upright body of a crucified messiah nailed to a cross. One would think that he was conditioned to the idea of bodies displayed in nonconventional postures.
Anecdotally, I feel that these men, Che, Javon and the others, had died so young, so healthy and so much in their prime that it was appropriate for them to be made to appear lifelike in death, they did after all have a lot more life to live.
Dispassionate analysis led me to conclude that I do not agree with the archbishop, and in working through this thought exercise I also realized that I was no longer repulsed, at least not for the same reason as the archbishop. But if not for the archbishop’s reasons then what? I embarked upon some more soul searching and I had to conclude that I have been…brainwashed.
Yes, brainwashed. Brainwashed by a Christian upbringing, by an indoctrination into the cult of respectability politics and by the vestiges of colonialist dogmas which declare that everything that is not exactly as the masters say they should be is otherwise…repulsive, persona non grata, excommunicable. I recognized that my initial reaction to the funerals was not founded in fact or science or law but was an emotional response based on the “who”. I realized that if the same ceremonies were held by people from a different part of the island, my reaction would not have been as strong.
Yes, perhaps some sensibilities are being offended, but these funerals, spectacular as they might be, transgress neither the laws of the land nor the laws of heaven. I therefore urge you to engage in independent thought, and if you search your heart and realize that you dislike the funerals for personal reasons then that is fine, but I want you to also conceded that your reasons are about as logical as not liking a car because it is red. You cannot (should not) impose your lack of logic and your absence of a legal, moral or scientific basis on society simply because “that’s how you feel.” I urge you dispense with the conditioned, dogmatic, knee-jerk reactions and (really) think for yourself.
On a side note, I am definitely ensuring that my loved ones understand that when I die, I DO NOT wish to appear at my service propped upright or sitting on a chair or wearing a pink dinner jacket. But that is, of course, merely my personal opinion.
#Respectfully.
During my research for this piece, I discovered a Mongolian culture that lays their dead out on the plains for the dogs to eat.
