On February 26th, 2003 at the age of fifteen, my oldest brother intentionally died from a drug overdose. I was the first one home and discovered his body, hunched over, his face buried into his pillow, body curled into the fetal position. Ben, I felt, was the only person that made me feel connected to my family and he was gone. At that young age I knew nothing of other culture’s mourning practices or what was deemed acceptable, all I knew was how I was told to mourn by my parents.
Ben was the black sheep of the family. He was raised with very damaging influences from our extended family, and by the hands of parents who weren’t able to cope with a child who desperately needed their help. Early in his life he left the small town we were raised in, and I was taught that I shouldn’t try to connect with him at all because he was dangerous and would “ruin me”. He moved back home to go back to school when he was 25 and I was 13. Ben stopped using drugs and had apologized for leaving me and promised to be the best big brother he could be. During the two years we had together we stayed up late watching foreign films together, or he would lend me a cd, we grew fairly close.
Towards the end of his life I felt a change in his personality. One morning I went downstairs and noticed the remnants of cocaine on one of his books. Wanting to protect him I didn’t tell anyone. Just washed the remainder off and put it on a bookshelf. Two weeks later I was ironing a dress shirt to wear to his funeral.
I remember distinctly as my parents were driving to the mortuary that my mom told me to smile so we didn’t let people think we were too sad, or weren’t handling the death of a loved one well.
Smiling I shook the hands of neighbors and family friends, assured them I was doing well enough, and quickly turned the focus onto other things that would be important to a 15 year old, and even attempted joking a few times.
The reason why I am writing this is to compare the palangi experience of mourning and funerals to the funerals of the pacific islanders. Not having attended a funeral but hearing great detail through class and personal discussions. My experience in mourning was that emotion is strictly private and the feeling of emotions is not encouraged. Death is sanitized and distant. Whereas the Tongan mourning process is very open, death isn’t kept away. People cut their hair, wear black for an extended time. Crying is expected or even promoted.
Polynesian mourning is a very communal experience, the death of one is felt throughout the group. The emotion and loss is projected outwardly...something I wish I could have experienced. There are many traditions or protocols that the Tongan community that work much better than than their palangi counterparts, and the mourning process is one of those things.
Mourning my oldest brother took years, it took reconciliations of faith, the treatment of those who are different, it took reconnecting with his friends, reading the books he left behind and some other very personal moments. I can’t help but think that if I knew there was a better way to mourn how much faster I could have processed the emotions of his death. Thankfully I’m learning of a culture where some things are done more naturally.
I’ve included the song that he asked a friend to sing at his funeral, and two pictures. One a few years before his death and one of him and our newborn niece, Gracie.
