Sylvia's Journal

We all knew Obi wouldn’t make it to 2023. He left us at the end of September after a long struggle with cancer. Yesterday we sent him off into the hereafter at the same church where he was baptized in 1951, which is also the year I was born. Some 100 people gathered in a giant Catholic Church in Brighton. Obi was a musician extraordinaire. His send-off was full of music, the music wafting high up in the vaulted ceilings to then descend on us like a warm blanket. The acoustics were fit for a king. They were fit for Obi. 

We were mesmerized by the highly choreographed movements of the priest and a few other church officials at the altar, especially the communion ritual, with much filling and wiping of goblets. I knew about this ritual from my childhood when my brother and I snuck into a nearby Catholic church out of curiosity. We weren’t forced to accompany our parents to our protestant church (somewhat like a UU church). It was a small and picturesque building with white-washed walls and few adornments. I grew up in a time when Holland was divided into religious ‘pillars,’ which applied to all spheres of life: schools, political parties, even radio stations, and marriage, with everyone staying in their lane. As a protestant it was not OK to date a Catholic. I don’t know if the Catholics felt the same way.  We even lived somewhat segregated. 

A girl my age who lived on the other end of the street was Catholic. We did not mix much but I do remember she told me about what happened in her church and that she had to confess her sins every week to a priest. I felt sorry for her about the latter, but I was also intrigued by the rituals she talked about. This made attending a Catholic service so much more interesting for a child. That’s why we snuck into the church. 

My father, a fierce anti-papist, was not pleased with our transgression into the Catholic Lane. ‘Liever Turks dan Paaps” (rather Turkish than Papist) was a slogan used during the Dutch revolt against the Spaniards at the end of the 16th century.  Wikipedia, reminded me of where that slogan came from. The Dutch were in such dire straits that they looked for help from the Ottomans to support them in their fight against their common Spanish enemies.

And so here I was, some 60 years later, attending a no holds barred Catholic funeral service. There were a few non-Catholic flourishes, like the violin solo and a procession by the priest and Obi ‘s two best friends carrying the box with his ashes and placing it on a table in front of us. There was a man blowing a conch shell and the sound of Buddhist temple bells. We hadn’t known Obi that long and did not know as much about him, other than that his real name wasn’t Obi – the priest spoke of Dennis returning to God; for us it was Obi going to some other place we couldn’t begin to fathom. Wherever it was, he would be resting in peace according to the priest because he was baptized in that same church; for us he would be resting in peace without the distraction of his no longer functioning body.