Latest update April 20th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 09, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
Kaieteur News – As the funeral cortege touched down at the site of the Catholic Church mausoleum where Catholic nuns are buried, I was asked to bear the casket into the tomb. I lifted one of the handles and I felt numb.
I loved that woman but I know people have to die. I am attuned to accept death because the reality of death forms one of the explanations in the best philosophy book ever written – Martin Heidegger’s “Being and Time”.
This country has lost of one its best humans that it has produced with the passing of Sister Mary Noel Menezes. All I can say is “What a superb, fine, ethereal, exceptional, phenomenal creation by Guyana.”
As the masons were ready to plaster the tomb, something shocked me. I honestly believe that was a mistake and the Catholic Church should apologise and desist with that practice. The mausoleum consists of a number of tombs. The practice is when a Sister dies, one of the tombs is broken into and the recent deceased Sister is placed in the tomb alongside the bones of those who died a very long time ago.
What I saw on Wednesday was completely unacceptable to me and should be for every other person in this world. The masons on the instruction of the Sisters of Mercy who were there, removed the bones and wrapped them in a dirty salt bag, besmirched with grains of wet cement and pushed the bag into the tomb.
That is not the way to treat the dead. There must be dignity treating the remains of those who served humanity. Those deceased Sisters were humans who served the world selflessly wherever they lived. They were people dedicated to serving the world without reward. They have family members who care about their image and who loved them for the work they did when they walked among us.
I watched that dirty bag of bones being pushed into the tomb and I felt something pierced my soul – is this the reward people receive for the great sacrifice they made for the world?
I remember, Kayjay, our neighbour’s dog that I loved immensely fell sick and blind and had to be put down. The people at the animal clinic on Robb Street told us after she is injected, they store the body and she will be deposited at the Haags Bosch dump site the next day.
I was livid. Kayjay was a family member. She should not be disposed of that way. She was buried in our yard. People want their loved ones and their pets to be buried with dignity. Those bones should have been placed in a small wooden box or small metal container but not in a dirty salt bag.
The Le Repentir Cemetery is one of the most disgraceful sites in the world. To think that people’s loved ones go there for their final resting place is unthinkable. That cemetery is beyond description. If you are from another country and you look at this cemetery, you can’t get the feeling that Guyana has collapsed. No foreign person should be allowed to see Le Repentir cemetery.
If it had rained the day before Sister’s funeral, then mourners would not have been able to make the journey. They would have been walking up to their knees in mud. It is time people resort to cremating their loved ones rather than using Le Repentir. That cemetery is part of Guyana’s vast jungle. Please do not bury your loved ones there.
Finally, at the burial, one of the Sisters of Mercy told me that Sister Emelda Skerritt is in Guyana at the moment. I knew Sister Skerritt when she was one of the world’s most beautiful women. She attended evening GCE classes at Guyana Oriental College. She would ride up each afternoon with her PF. That was a mini-motorcycle though that is not the appropriate description. I have in my consciousness right now the image of a white skirt and pumpkin top she once wore to classes.
The last conversation I had with Emelda was in 1972. That is 50 years ago. She stopped coming to classes and the next thing I heard she left Guyana to join the order of the Sisters of Mercy. I never saw her since that year, never heard anything about her since 1972. I once asked Sister Mary about her and was told she is serving her God in Pennsylvania.
If anyone who is reading this knows Sister Skerritt, please contact her and ask her to send me an image of herself to my email – [email protected]m. My cell is 614-5927.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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