D.I.F.

Death In Family...I can not begin to express how I feel that my family has already had 3ish funerals this year. It's like the usual zed schedule of one death per week per family...such that when the phone rings you're a little antsy...'who died now?'

I have never fully understood the meaning of a family tree until now...when each branch is cut off or chipped...you feel the pain. The closer the branch, the more pain inflicted on the tree.

In the beginning of my life, my greatest joy was having sooo many relatives to go to. Now its the bane of my existance because it doesn't bring me joy to know so many people but sorrow as they slowly fade from the world one after the other. As if we we're numbered from birth to follow a certain sequence. "who's next?" we all wonder as we lay one of our own to rest.

"we mutemwikwa wesu...ahhh..wa uma ku mukoshi. We chiwa, walikalipa. Watusendela umutemwikwa wesu." Familiar words written by my grand-father the late Alick Nkhata ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alick_Nkhata , http://www.retroafric.com/html/sl_notes/04cd_3.html, which has become our family's funeral anthem about a beloved that has since breathed their last... how does one get used to death?