Death is such that we never get to terms with the fact that the deceased is permanently departed from us. Otherwise there would not be belief in life after death. Recently I had the chance to interview a lady that is at the forefront of a literary project that seeks to mobilise ordinary Rwandans in penning letters and missives to departed loved ones, particularly those that perished in the 1994 genocide. Basically, the project seeks to free the memory of all the departed from the box of “victims”, and give them a human face by telling stories about their lives. The project went to schools and prisons, soliciting letters-to-departed-loved-ones from orphans, widows, victims, and perpetrators alike. People from the two sides of the conflict each wrote down a short letter to a departed one, just like the ordinary mail we send through e-mail or through Post Office. In the letters, each of them tried to depict the life of the departed person; things like personality traits, physical attributes, social habits, and their likes and dislikes. Some of the letters came off like intimate, one-to-one conversations between tight friends. Picking some of the messages from the letters, one thing kept bothering my mind: had these people taken time off to compliment these now departed souls while they still lived? All I could do was hope that they did. Kiki Gakire Katese, the lady who designed the project would later reveal that some of the writers, after penning their missives, had honestly and innocently demanded to know if the dead would actually respond to their letters. Such is the power of death, and the depths of pain and denial to which it pushes those that survive the dead. As if death is not already bad enough, there is a new monster with us that is hell-bent on making the experience of losing friends and loved ones even harder now: this monster is called “trivialization of death”, and it has only been made possible through the proliferation of social media – I mean those things of Facebook and Twitter and WhatsApp? Have you seen people posting about death on their social media profiles these days? Have you observed the recklessness (and sadism) with which people rush to post “death rumors” “and “death announcements” once someone in their circle is rumored bed-ridden somewhere? “Is it true that musician X,Y,Z is actually dead? Someone please confirm ASAP!!” yes, sometimes it even comes complete with multiple exclamation marks! More annoying is the fact that they usually choose to write their doomsday posts in reckless and unintelligible slang: “Is’t tru dat dis hommie’z dead? OMG! S/one pliz confrm ASAP!!” In fact, inquiring about someone’s burial arrangements or the circumstances leading to their death is a lot better than that “R.I.P Moze. You wer’ a kul guy. Wl miss yu!” on your Facebook page. If anything, I won’t be on FB anymore!
