I am now comfortable with the topic of "death"&"funerals" at this point in my life since I have many personal experiences in this area, my father passed in 98, my grandmother in 94, my grandfather when I was only 4 or 5, my 2 uncles and 2 aunts who left a few years back. But my first real encounter, meaning when I began to understand was approximately 10 years old. A friend not a close friend but someone we played with in the community, Compton was his name and approximately 12.

He often visited our home but that particular day he came by to clean our garden. Several hours later, my grandmother paid him and he left to play with his friends in the sugar cane fields. As night crept in there was a loud, panicky knock on our door, it was Compton's mother. She was looking for him, since she had not seen him since he left home earlier. I told her he left to play with his friends immediately after cleaning our garden. It was now 10pm and there is no sign of Compton, both his mother and sisters began to cry, I can still recall his mother pacing back and forth as she whispered a prayer. His uncle and others from the community assisted in searching for Compton, he was found a few hours later in a trench, it was said his cause of death was drowning but there were some who said it was foul play although, this theory was never proven. I recall seeing his lame body being lifted and carried through the street, his mother grabbing his wet, moist, muddy body shaking it as though her screams would awaken his soul to enter back into his body.

That week his body was displayed at the funeral home for all in the community to see but I refused to look at it directly. I didn't want to see it; maybe I was scared unsure why I remained still as viewers looked on. He was dressed in a dark suit and his face was painted with white caked powder, which looked like pancake batter. At the funeral I caught a glimpse of the hearse, which when I think back looks morbid and dark. I imagined a pink hearse with colourful flowers so to take my mind off of the darkness around me. I asked my grandmother why everything at the funeral looked so drab, & bleak, nothing joyful? She said it has always been this way and most people tend to equate dark with funerals.

As I got older I discovered why I really disliked funerals, it wasn't because of the dead person, but the big production society makes of it. It has to do with the shiniest most expensive, casket, make up, clothes, flowers

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