Word of the month: Perspective - the capacity to view things in their true relations or relative importance.

The month of January has been about perspectives. From starting this blog with my sisters, being told to "take that THING off your head", to coming home to Swedish equality and attending a funeral in the snow, taking a few steps back and getting a dose of perspective is always healthy.

Melancholy snow

For me, funerals are like walking past an open window. You want to look in even though you feel a sense of shame for being inquisitive but once you do you've already walked past and you're only left with a glimpse. Funerals give us that window into the certainty of death. We're scared to look through it for fear of seeing the inescapable unknown yet we cannot help being drawn towards it. 

I saw a picture in a magazine the other day of a mountain range in Australia and the caption read "a humbling experience, placing ourself in the perspective of the world around us". For me, funerals is what places everything around me into perspective. My sister in law recently got married and I had the pleasure of meeting her father-in-law who passed away 3 weeks ago on a flight to Sweden via London. Because of procedure and paper work (the excuse for every delay nowadays) he was only released to be buried last Friday. The funeral was, to say the least, beautifully sad and humbling.

  

In South Africa and many other parts of the world, women remain at home while the men go to the graveyard but things are different in Sweden; women accompany the men to the grave. Now, I can't deny it, but on hearing this, I could not help but become slightly apprehensive, wondering how the women would react and whether or not this was the Islamic way. However, my apprehension melted along with the flakes of snow falling on my jacket.

After leaving the holding room at the graveyard where the body was kept, the casket was carried out by the family while everyone followed. The sun cast a dull hue behind snow cloud canvases as we followed along the path covered by freshly falling snow. The snow fell silently and the day felt slowed down as we kept pace with the shuffling of black and brown boots now painted with white. When we reached the grave site, we, the women, stood on the outskirts whilst the men prayed over and started the task of shovelling sand over the body. We raised our hands in joint prayer and then were given single white roses to place over the top of the mound. 

Standing in the middle of a graveyard, surrounded by the little remains of life; a name on a tombstone, a date of birth, a candle placed by a loved one, I realised that I had never felt so content and at peace. 

There might be many who will argue that a woman cannot go to a graveyard but having experienced this myself, you can only benefit from it by coming to view this life in its true relation and relative importance to our next life. This is the perspective that we all need to make us understand that while death is the only certainty, this life remains the only uncertainty.

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Keep posted for our next article on Perspective: Off with her scarf!