My name is Muluka and I am a hearse driver. What a funny way to start a story. It were as if I am at a sobriety meeting. I hear people whisper, “He is no longer the same man; his job has taken its toll on him because of the gruesome things he has seen; his mind is giving in; he could be going crazy; he should see a therapist.”

My mother prays for me, that’s what she does. She finds solace in her rosary and her Hail Mary’s.

My wife understands me. I live life to the fullest. I like being home with my family; playing pool and enjoying drinks with my friends. Driving the hearse helps to pay for it all.

People want to know if I love my job... I don’t know. This is the only life I know. This job enables me to take care of my family and in a country such as this, where jobs are as scarce, I am glad to have one.

Some ask if I am scared of death and I tell them about my experience at school. After an exam, our teachers would come to class with our results and call out names, usually in no particular order. As you sat there nervously waiting, you knew your name would be called out eventually and that when that happened, you had to answer. That is how I feel about death. We will all eventually die, all of us.

Every day I drive the hearse to a different morgue, take a corpse and drive it to the grave site with the bereaved family. I see people grieve differently. Some are numb, other wails, while some will threaten to kill themselves. With time, I have realised that grief is personal and no one else can feel your pain.

However, there are times when funerals are not as sad, especially when it is old people who have lived a full life and died peacefully. Most times though, funerals are stressful and I usually feel bad for the bereaved. I usually want to offer a shoulder of comfort but I hold back because I know that eventually we will all be gone it may take a day, a week, months or even years, but death is inevitable.

Death is the ultimate loss. When someone dies, they disappear into oblivion forever. You will never see them again. When you are as close to death as I am, you learn to live one day at a time, to cherish those you love and to be at peace with yourself. Death is like a woman scorned, who takes and takes, in an attempt to fill her own emptiness but no matter how many she takes, the void remains.

******

Today, I have seen grief like I have never seen before. I left my house on time and checked the names of those I was picking up. None were familiar and it was not my duty to know them. If anything, I pray that I never see or remember the names or faces of the dead.

I made my way to Grace Funeral Home and got behind the wheel of the hearse. A couple of people were already waiting to give me directions as we drove to the city mortuary.

A group of mourners stood outside the morgue. This group was unlike other mourners I had seen; they were all silent. I could feel an impenetrable fog of misery envelop the surrounding when we got in. Then I saw her. She was not crying and her eyes looked vacant. She looked old, frail and defeated.

I reached out to shake the hand of the woman while leaning closely to hear what she was saying. That’s when I realised she was not talking to me, but rather was chanting the words “It’s over... It’s over...”

******

When I first started working at Grace Funeral Home, about 10 years ago, her husband’s was the first body we attended to. I remember her face because I hadn’t seen beauty like that before. I envied her husband. I too would have comfortably died in the arms of such a woman.

But, today the spark in her eyes was gone and a blank stare had taken over. She was void of all emotion, her laughter was hollow and her smile was plastic and uninspired. I saw in her face a transformation I had never seen before. I saw grief.

Grief I realise, is not measured by the amount of tears shed.

The woman had lost her firstborn son, who had been her pillar after her husband died. Matthew, as he was called, had a face that was a perfect replica of his father’s. To his mother, he was a constant reminder of the love she had shared with her husband.

******

The mourners walked behind the woman as she made her way out of the compound. She was still chanting the words “It’s over... it’s over.” Women wept as children clung to them as the men shook their heads.

Her face looked like that of someone who had been stripped of her soul.

Later, we would lower the body into the earth, dirges would be sung and the woman would collapse, her daughter would weep at her feet while her other son would try unsuccessfully to remain strong.

******

I drove my hearse out of the homestead, pulled up at a canteen, smoked a cigarette and called my family to remind them that I was still alive and that that was a great thing.