Dear Mother,
I was so happy to receive your letter and to read that you and my sisters are doing well.
I was so happy that I cried, mama. I wanted to keep reading for days, months. Every time I finished it, your letter was still short. So I started imagining how you wrote it, how you dictated it to one of my sisters or maybe our neighbour’s son.
I am doing very well. I wanted to write with my news cause I know you worry about me. Needlessly, I should say. It’s been a year since I’ve started working and though at first I thought it might be difficult (remember when I told you?) it turns out, it is really ok. I guess, like doctors and priests, you get used to the ways of life.
But unlike doctors and priests mama, I didn’t really want to work here. Noone will look to me for comfort. I am the person covering their person in dirt. And it’s hard, mama. It does get better with time and I have got used to seeing the dead, covering them before I lower them to the ground. But I don’t think I’ll ever get used to seeing the living, the ones left behind, mama. I can’t look them in the eye. And I don’t want to.
Yes, after a while, you realise it is just a part of life. And really, when you see how many people turn up at the burials, you know that people have really lived their lives, have been loved and in a way you are glad for them. It gives you hope.
They turn up dressed in black, mama. Sisters and daughters, and sons and husbands. And mothers, mama. Mothers burying their children. And I have to wait for them. Wait for them to scream, wait for them to touch their child one last time, mama. I cannot look away. So I look down. Sometimes I’m ashamed mama, sometimes I feel it’s my fault. But it has to be done. We cannot wait forever, mama. I can barely get through the ten minutes it takes to cover the body.
The job is not too hard. We – me and O that is- just lower the coffin in the ground and cover it. It takes only about ten minutes and sometimes the families help. Then we help with the flowers, I put them on top of the fresh pile of soil.
It’s not too hard. No. Except for those times when I have to get inside the grave and take the old bones out, mama. Sometimes it’s just a hole, like a well back home, like the holes we used to dig on the beach when we were children. Like the holes papa dug when the soil was freshly rained upon, soft and nurturing. Sometimes it’s just a hole mama. But there are times…There are times that I feel it’s going to swallow me if I go in or if I just do as little as look at it. Sometimes, when I’m standing at the edge of a hole, I feel like on top of a rock, over the blue calm waters of the ocean.
I always finish work before sunset – they never bury anyone after sunset here either, nor anyone comes to visit. We have been given a small house near the cemetery with furniture and even a TV. At night, the area is very quiet, very peaceful. O and I sit and talk or watch television while we sip on tea.
It’s just a little room, mama. Just enough to cover our heads and keep us almost warm in the winter, almost cool in the summer. The nights are eerily quiet – at times I feel the quiet is the sound of the spirits muting all other sounds. They never drown your voice mama. I fight with all my soul and I manage to keep your sweet voice in my head, when there seems to be nothing but fear in my heart.
I hope the money I’m sending is enough. We get paid quite well, because every family gives us something extra for our work. I wish people didn’t have to die for me to get paid, but… As I said, it’s just another job. Don’t you worry, though, I always say a little prayer for every one of them, for God to rest their soul. In some way, it’s best that I do this job than someone who doesn’t know to pray the way you taught me to.
I do pray, mama. To see your face again and my sisters’ faces. For God to rest these poor people’s souls. But mostly…Mostly I pray that God will forgive me for every time I think “not enough people died today” or “these people are cheap” or “please shut them up – I can’t bear any more of their cries”. I pray for my soul, mama. Because it’s slipping away, piece by piece, I drop it in the graves and cover it in stones and dirt. I pray for God to save some of it for me. So that I don’t forget what life is really like.
You know, I realise every day I am quite lucky with my life here. I have a job and a house and time to read my prayers and time to think about you and my sisters. I hope I’ll see you soon mother. Kiss my sisters for me and tell them I think of them.
I’m lucky I don’t have to bury my own people, mama. Just that. Tell my sisters I think of them, mama. Ask them to take care of you for me. You are getting older, mama. I’m scared I might miss your last smile, your sweet voice, the hug that caresses my soul. I love you.
Love,
Your son.
