Nairobi, Kenya, Feb 11- The widow of the late former Education Cabinet Secretary Professor George Magoha has explained why she didn’t wail on receiving her husband’s body at home according to the Luo tradition.
In Luo tradition, wailing is a customary practice when the body of a deceased loved one is taken home.
However, Barbara said she chose to mourn her husband in her Nigerian way explaining that while some cultures are good at some point people have to let go of some of them.
“People were upset, some astonished that I did not wail and cry to enter the home, Sorry to let you down. My new position in the family does not give me such privilege to do a public display of emotion,” she said during the final burial ceremony of her husband.
“I mourned by husband the Nigerian way, because when you are in distress you go back to the womb… I mourned him in my own way. I did my songs of lamentations at the hospital,” she said of the Igbo procession held in Nairobi days to the funeral.
Instead of mourning his death, Barbara asked mourners to celebrate her husband’s legacy and the hope he offered the world.
“They say my husband does not smile, but everybody who has seen him knows that, that is the smiling face that has left the world, and that is what I want people to remember,” she said.
She told mourners that she had accepted that her husband was gone and thanked everyone who was part of her husband’s final journey.
Barbara further pointed out that she supported Magoha in so many ways during his time on earth.
“I never let him down. He ate my food until the last day. For 40 good years, nobody else ate my husband’s food. I am so busy but whether I am in the country or not, it was my food that he ate,” she said.
Magoha died on January 24 at Nairobi Hospital after suffering a heart attack.
