When you cook you cook for many, when you cry you cry for all… African Saying Mama Tembo told me the night before the memorial service
People. It’s people I care about and with all the complications at SHADE at the end of the day, we care about people.
Two Sundays ago, Mama Tembo told me we were going to the hospital to see Mama Marijean’s daughter. I met Mama Marijean when we were in DRC for the conference and she is one of our main leaders there. Mama asked me to come to the hospital because I coordinate with our DRC satellite projects and work with Mama Marijean. I did not know Mama Marijean incredibly well but I knew she was kind, incredibly gracious and I had great respect for her. I wanted to see her.
It took me a little while to understand the whole story- trying to interpret French and Swahili. But the family had come because Esther the daughter was in a coma and needed better care than in DRC. She had complications during childbirth and everything was not removed causing an infection that spread throughout her body. By the time I first saw her she had had 4 operations and was being kept in the coma so she wouldn’t move and spread the infection anymore.
Since she was in ICU the visiting hours are only an hour and only two people are allowed at a time. I prayed with the family in the waiting room and greeted everyone. Slowly we all took turns seeing Esther.
Joyce, Mama Tembo's eldest daughter, and I were called to go into the ICU. I don’t quite know how to explain meeting someone for the first time while they are in a coma. I was glad I was there for Joyce, who knew Esther and could see the pain on her face seeing Esther this way. The nurse came in and told us not to be afraid to touch her and to talk to her. So I did I held her hand and introduced myself. I felt a little silly using English and added in what Swahili and French I could. And I just talked to her for Joyce and I. Her eyes fluttered a couple time while we were talking and she knew people were there.
I think I was confused if it was really my place to be there, but at the same time a powerful connection. As we went back to the waiting room I was still unsure and told Joyce we should have sang to her, we should next week. Song seems to be a better way to connect.
Esther’s brother, Michel, was sitting in another room alone, so I went to go talk to him. At first with French and Swahili, until he said you know I know English. So we continued on and I learned that he and his brother live in South Africa for school. I met Yannick the next week and appreciated being there as an outlet for the brothers.
We took the family to the Center to meet the students and pray. And got a selection of Congolese food we grow in the garden. Papa John, Esther’s father has an amazing sense of grace. And Mama Marijean was so strong and kind and laughing and hoping. Everyone was hoping.
It was then my week at the center and it was a very long week. During the weekend a team from the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas was here and I was speaking to Jonathan Bell after church. Finding our common histories as he had lived in DC for 13 years.
Jen got me for Mama very quickly and she pulled me away and said full of grief “Esther died. We need to go to the hospital.” We jumped into the car with the group from Kansas and the rest of the staff following behind, some in the pastor’s car that he lent.
We walked into the waiting room and Mama Marijean and her friend were on the floor unable to move but for the crying. Mama immediately rushed to the floor to be with them, as I moved the table of untouched tea and coffee. I noticed Michael upset in the chair next to them and went to him, while the women were greeting each other.
The rest of the staff was coming in and this tiny room was filled with people and sorrow. I couldn’t even tell you everything, but I went to go sit between the women so I could hold Mama Marijean. So I could just be there with them. Papa John even started a song, bringing comfort to others when his daughter who they had tried so hard to save had passed. She had had a successful operation that week and they said she had even been able to wake up- the devastation was intense.
The boys were doing a good job providing for their family even though they didn’t know what to do, especially for their mom. I asked Yannick, who was in a different room this time, if he had been home for his sisters wedding and he said, “Yes and now I’ll have to go back for her funeral.” (The situation with the husband was interesting, he had just gotten in from Congo and I had not even realized he was at the hospital till later in the week.)
Mama Tembo and a few of her family members had planned to go to the house to be with the family that night. But things got so late that we went Monday night. There were people all over the yard on the way in it almost looked like a college party. But then we went inside and the women were on the ground on blankets mourning. I am pretty sure Mama Marijean has been there since leaving the hospital and hadn’t had a thing to eat or drink. So Mama Tembo on one side, Joyce and the other and I by here legs sat with her and mourned.
The next night Mama Tembo and I planned the memorial service for Esther before they flew her back to DRC. Everyone was exhausted trying to help the family manage a way to take her home, and because the needs of the center kept going and were great this week.
Jen is in charge of spirituality, but it was her week teaching at the center so I told Mama I should help make the program and assist in what she needed. I also felt I had no idea what to do, but in a very small part I was on a journey with this family.
So until late into the night we planned out the service and tried to sing over songs in multiple languages and that everyone would know. Mama’s girls helped, as did Freddy, Deborah even wrote a poem on the spot for us to use. And in that exhausted room, I think we found some healing through music. Mama was especially burnt out- she has baptized Esther and the family was very dear to the whole Kalanga/Ilunga family.
I slept at Mama’s and the next morning Jen, Lucy, Rachel, and Yvette came early and helped me bring everything else we needed. Each took a part in the service too. And Danielle drove us behind the students as we made our way in Johannesburg for the first time since we lived here.
As the family started coming I tried to use grace in handling her family and the husbands family. They started coming to me to add in announcements they wanted to give and asked me to do it all.
The chapel at the morgue slowly filled as the service went on. I am not sure how everyone knew Esther, but it seemed like the Congolese community that they had here in South Africa and all those that couldn’t go back to DRC. I was trying to be as much support to Mama Tembo as I could. Watching Mama Marijean in the front almost kept me from going on, but at the same time made it important that I did.
At the end of the service we opened the casket and I was next to it as everyone walked by. That’s when I started crying. I remember at my step grandfathers funeral balling at the end of it. And I hadn’t known him like the rest of the family, but I could feel their pain so much and understood the gravity of the loss of Clark. But I remember saying see this is why I could never be a pastor.
And now I found myself standing next to the pastor helping lead a service for a group of people I do not know really in a very different culture. But I could understand the pain enough to know the vast amount of feelings around me I could never fully comprehend.
Mama Tembo and I were the last to go up to the casket. I held her hand as tight as I could knowing what she must be going though. And we sang with everyone else, and there was Esther. There was the woman I had met the week before and I was singing to her this time. She was surrounded in white and I half expected she would wake up. She was beautiful and I guess that’s the way it should be. She was 25 and had just started with her dreams. Within a year she had been married and pregnant…
And my heart is with Mama Marijean, because I have been to funerals before, but if I even start to have an idea of what my mother would be going through… I could understand her not being able to stand.
I ended up going back to the boys’ apartment with the family. Mama Marijean was back in her place on the floor by the time I got there, and Papa John offered me a chair. And the afternoon was a bit awkward as I just sat in the chair and the young people were outside or serving everyone. The men in chairs and the woman on the floor. And when Mama Tembo came to fetch me a few hours later, I said my goodbye to everyone and they thanked me so whole-heartedly. Papa John thanked me especially for all the support. And so I don’t know exactly why I went, but I had to be there. I think being there for the brothers was maybe the most important as in a lot of ways we are peers, but I sought them out to hear them. And I think we all have a lot of mutual respect.
I don’t have a good ending for you or perfect words. For the first time in my life I think I have questioned hope, for how much we hoped for Esther and earlier Sam and Clint. And at the same time being here and with the people I am with- I see everything as more a part of life. All the emotions, all the joy, all the sorrow- it is real and it is life- but nothing is the end of the world. And I am blest to be part of life.
