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Mama sat up, groaning and furiously running her fingers through her disheveled grey hair. She was not shedding tears, but her soul was clearly troubled. With her hands raised to the sky, Patricia David, 65 year old mother of Peter, fidgeted on her feet and grimaced at the sight of surrounding sympathizer. "Is Peter my son, alright?" she asked with a saddening sense of delusion. But the old woman's question needed no further answer as sporadic cannon shots ushered in the corps of Peter David into his home town. And Mama knew it. She knows that the cold hands of death had struck, snatching her only son in his prime.

Peter 32 was a very hard working young man who was just recently promoted at his place of work a fortnight ago and should have been celebrating is successes, but now he is been mourned convoy of cars and long buses which convey his friends and sympathizers from every part of the country, especially from the city where he lived before death took him on that faithful day.
While cannons sounded repeatedly, human beings, too, exploded with wailing, tears flowed freely as hordes of young man and women wept profusely over Peter's untimely exit. The town that was once a beehive of activities now became a place of mourning.
Own it was time for the funeral rites of one of their own. The town was agog as Peter's body was brought out of the Peugeot 504 ambulance that brought him from the city and laid-in-state at his compound on Lawrence Street. A large crowd conveyed for a dusk-to-dawn service of songs and cultural displays. The wake-keeping was administered by his brethren and pastor from his church. A brief exhortation was given by the presiding pastor, prayers for the departed soul were made and then there was the singing of hymns.
The natives of his home town also see death as a celebration of life. So while the church and other religious groups where busy praying to God, those of the natives who where there started playing traditional drums and other instruments.
Although death is celebrated differently with lots of variations, the death of a person remains undesired.

Learn more about this author, Ivory Onakpoberuo.
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