How do you describe missing someone? You can miss the idea and the presence. You can miss how things are no longer the same. You can possibly miss a future of things not yet come. Is all that, and probably much more, a someone?
I can, however, try and describe how we said goodbye.
The funeral was on Saturday, the 28th of March, sometime before 6:30am.
I woke at 4am, put the clothes I was wearing earlier back on, and went outside to the people preparing behind scenes for the funeral. I got a cup of tea and scarfed a biscuit and then slipped back into the night vigil.
There were 200 maybe close to 300 people on the homestead. We had a big tent constructed. There was a petrol generator for lights. Three or four handigas refridgerators were brought over. A cow was slaughtered the previous day.
The night vigil involves praying, giving testamonials, singing, and wailing. I had tried to stay up as long as I could, but boiled beef (uhg) and not understanding siSwati did me in and I decided to slip away for a couple hours of sleep.
As the dawn crept up, the coffin was brought to the center of the tent and we all gathered around. Prayers and singing. Singing and prayers. And finally we started walking down to the burial site. The sun had just made it totally over the horizon as we layed my host mother to rest in our home's soil.
We prayed and sang some more. I read, at my host father's request, a little blurb I had written in a card sent by Peace Corps. We closed and we walked up to boxed breakfasts, more boiled beef.
And it was over. Things were cleaned and other things were taken down. Soon the family was all there was on the homestead. And some of those we would say goodbye to soon as well.
I will miss her.