Madagascar has taught me a lot about death. In a way it has helped heal many wounds of past deaths, it has not only given me a new perspective on death but of course that of life too, but it has been difficult to let go of how I express my feelings towards both.
Danicia was a good friend of mine. She was 11 years old, eager to learn, always so helpful, kept the smaller kids in order and never fought with the older kids. It sounds like I'm fluffing up an obituary for her, but I'm not, honestly she was the sweetest Malagasy child around.
She always came over to learn how to draw something new or to read what she could. She was 5 days away from finding out she passed the 5th grade.
She was always quite sick. Her brother Danisio and her had to frequently go to the private hospital 7km away for blood transfusions. But her death took us all by surprise.
Her death took place a few months ago but I'm finally willing up the strength it takes to write about her and figuring out my thoughts of how her death and those of many here affect the Malagasy people.
When I asked the Adjoint what was "vaovao" on the day that Danicia died, he told me there was news. This is odd because the automatic response to "what's new?" is always nothing. I was hanging my clothes up on the line when he told me in a whisper from the distance of my porch to the fence where he stood that she had gone to sleep and simply did not wake up. I asked again as if I heard wrong, which I have noticed that I have done for every death of a family or friend. It's something you just can't understand hearing and so you ask again, but hearing it again hurts worse than the first time. Tears came immediately and just at that moment my Malagasy mother came up to me and asked me to go with her to visit Mama Danicia.
No hugs, no soft warming response to stop my tears from anyone to me nor to anyone else. I softly let tears fall from my face while I walked through the town while children called my name as they normally do. I tried to stop crying because I knew that was inappropriate and it scared the children.
When we arrived at their house there were a group of women sitting beside Danicia's body wrapped in white sheet with her hands over her chest and her sweet face pointed upwards. She simply looked as if she was sleeping peacefully.
Her mother said some words to Danicia about me and our relationship that we had. She told her to never forget how we used to play games like 'wah' and draw pictures until we couldn't even see the paper in front of faces it got so late into the evening. Our 'slumber parties' and how I brought her fruit all the way from the Capitol that weekend before. She said words that of course I didn't understand, I'm not even sure I wanted to know them. I wasn't even sure I was hearing correctly because all I could do was look at Danicia through my teary eyes and wonder why no one else was crying.
I'm assuming there did come a point where my reaction/behavior/demeanor became inappropriate because when I couldn't speak a word and the tears wouldn't stop the older women told my mom to take me home.
Danicia's younger siblings came with me too, which I thought was inappropriate because they only wanted to play.
We arrived at my house and they were giggling and goofing around while I sat and watched in disbelief. We watched many people pass by in their traditional 'going to a death' attire with their heads wrapped in cloth and their lambas around their waist.
"Maty i Danicia! Te mamangy i Danicia indreo," (Danicia is dead and they are going to visit her) said her younger brother Danisio.
"Fa maninona tsy milalao i Kelsey?" asked sweet 5-year-old Danicelle.
So, I put aside any work I had that day (as if I could concentrate on it anyway) and we put together puzzles for the remainder of the day.
I stayed as happy as I could, because I didn't want to be sad for the kids and it was quite confusing why they weren't upset by what had happened.
The next day I was walking with my Malagasy brother and he told me that their just too young to know exactly what happened, which is understandable for kids younger than the age of 10. It did make sense that they weren't mourning the death of their sister.
However, my brother couldn't give me an explanation on why no one else was crying either. He and I both thought that maybe it's just too common here and that expressing emotions is not a way of dealing with death.
Before coming to Madagascar, I was told and had also read that the Malagasy are one the cultures that show the least amount of emotions in the entire world. I guess this situation would suffice that is the truth. I've only seen an adult cry once because of stolen goods. I see children cry when they are physically in pain. Neither from a loss of a loved one or of emotional reasons tied to others.
Death really does happen every day. I know that from losing loved ones. I've certainly seen and experienced it more in this country than ever before. I've seen countless amount of dead bodies and hear and see the happenings of funerals nearly everyday. But what has it taught me? Have I learned to appreciate life more from seeing so much death?
I'm still mulling it all over and while I'm doing that-death just keeps happening.
I was once told that life is like walking up stairs; we learn how to walk, and over time it's just a habit, living, walking up these stairs is a simple act that we slowly stop to think about but just do. But when death of a loved one occurs it is as if we missed a step in the staircase, catching us off guard and making us take a minute to gain our balance and think of what we must do again to continue on with life. It makes us think about life and the unexpectedness of death.
It has taken me a long time to get over the loss of loved ones in the past, and I do believe I will never fully heal, however, the Malagasy have helped me see a new perspective. I don't, nor will I alter my noticeable emotions to mimick theirs but I also see the benefits of quickly learning how to walk up the stairs again, of moving onward. I now know that if life is a set of stairs that we must all go up, then it must be a long one and there are bound to be some missed steps and those steps will be ones that I will always remember.
Although I had to deal with my emotions alone and there was no one to share my tears with, I have grown from this experience. There are parallels in my culture and the Malagasy of how we deal with death. I know that mothers lose sleep over the death of a child but when they do sleep, dreams of their child will come. I've noticed it takes awhile to get back to work. Their is some confusion of what happened and for what reasons. There's then an empty place. Tears are certainly not a common denominator but sharing stories of lost loved ones is and I can happily report that a smile will cross their face in remembrance of that person, as I have one while writing this.
Danicia (on the far left) after working in the garden.
