Pallbearers are some of the people that get the least accolades during the vote of thanks during a funeral but thanks to social media, a new meme was created in reference to the coffin-dancing men of Ghana.
It brought a different light into what most African communities associate death with — sadness.
Nonetheless, another’s departure from life is someone else’s means for getting an income with Kenya having 7,876 registered funeral homes as per the latest Social Health Authority records.
This might be just a small fraction of the operating number of coffin makers or even wreath makers and with them always praying for success in their business as any other business person, there are days when business is good.
Families have been left with huge loans taken to cater for different things that center burial activities and others with the hope of receiving a lot of bereavement money end up overspending.
Ipsos Kenya survey of 2018 revealed that a middle-class Kenyan spends an average of Sh50,000 to Sh300,000 with the amount rising exponentially if the deceased was hospitalised.
It also reported that funerals have become ostentatious with funeral business becoming creative in their different designated areas like decor and sound.
In other cases, people have renovated their houses and build new structures days before funerals to show off to their friends, getting into more debts.
The cessation of life is all living things’ fate and regardless of the send-off, it is still irreversible and society should deliberately plan for such occurrences. Depending on family and friends’ contribution and borrowing from banks and shylocks should never be the only solution to a dignified send-off.
Funeral insurance awareness ought to increase across cultures and it needs the right marketing and made affordable to people from all walks of life. This will reduce the burden that death already is.
The culture of refusing to plan for death should be done away with and insurances need to build trust with their clients.
What is left for those not in the funeral business is to offer emotional support to those grieving to ease their burden of mourning.
The writer, Mercy Mwikali, is a sociologist