Funerals becoming Fetes

FUNERALS ARE RAPIDLY BECOMING FETES IN LINDEN AND CLERGYMAN
SELWYN SILLS is becoming increasingly frenetic over the decay.
And the pungent stench of the rot in attitude has enveloped the entire social atmosphere in the
bauxite-mining community, according to Pastor Sills.
With jollification triumphing over caution in living and reflection on the possible meanings of
life, Sills is pained that the cavalier attitude during the pandemic has welcomed the scythe of
death into the impoverished mining community.
PASTOR SILLS said he has never conducted so many funeral services since the outbreak
of COVID-19.
“People are dropping like flies (and I have) “literally run out of clothing (to conduct funeral
services) and this is no joke,” Sills said at a recebt funeral service of a childhood friend.
The highly contagious virus first detected in Wuhan, China in 2019 has so far killed some 4
million persons globally. Guyana this week passed the 500-mark.
Since the first recorded case here in March 2020, there have been 21,223 cases with 19, 435
recoveries in Guyana.
Ministry of Health figures show 503 deaths here so far.
www.aroundtheregions.com learnt that Lindeners are beginning to be mowed down by the virus
and according to Pastor Sills, some ‘Men of the cloth’ in the mining community have become
‘funeral-fatigued’.
So, some have stopped accepting fresh funeral services.
Sills said, sometimes, he does multiple funerals per day.
“Every day its two, three funerals and many have reached a stage where they have to refuse
doing funerals now because of the amount. A simple visit to many burial grounds this week and
another visit next week will see that from where you last saw tombs they have extended much
farther because we have a situation where people are dying like flies.”

“There is really no formula to life. When we were small, it was only elderly people that died with
many in their 80’s, 90s and beyond, but these last days there are many as toddlers, teenagers (and
those in their), 20s,” he noted.
Lindeners have largely ignored government warnings and have side-stepped established
healthcare protocols crafted in the fight against the Corona Virus.
“Have fun, but be responsible with the kind of fun that you have as your ‘fun’ can harm yourself
and others,” Sills warned.
“Everyone of us will die including this pastor speaking to you. We are a society that prepares for
everything else, but for some reason don’t prepare for death. We have to be cognisant that for
these last days’, death is stirring more than anything else and that is the reality. I have never gone
to so many of funerals in a short space of time within my entire life. I have literally run out of
clothing going to funerals and it’s no joke,” the Reverend stressed.
He is also concerned with a discernable trend noted also in the mining community where a large
portion of the 40,000 residents have lost the sense of the sacred inhered in the rites of passage.
He noted a disturbing attitude to funerals which has left him bewildered.
According to him, funerals are rapidly becoming fetes and not somber moments to reflect
on the deeper meanings of life.
“We need to ask ourselves the important questions of, where will I be when I die? Or, what will
happen to my soul? Some people are only worried about what others would say at their funerals.
People concoct all kind of things (to say) at peoples’ funerals. Sometimes we have people who
would rig up some stories to make the dead look good. However, everybody who is there knows
the truth. Don’t let people have to make up stories at your funeral to make you look good,” he
counselled.
He continued, “In life what people say about you should be the truth as you should be an
example.”
Sills told www.aroundtheregions.com he is worried by peoples’ excessive consumerist behaviour
and the constant pursuit of material things, clear indications that they have lost their sense of
values.
“We have some people, who, the more they get is the more that they want. While they are
desperately pursuing more, they are really not achieving (anything of lasting value),”
Pastor Sills noted.