“Slowly like Someone who puts Flowers in a coffin” (Mia Couto)

Summary

The text reflects on the profound sorrow and delicate care observed in the face of a baby's death, drawing a parallel to the meticulous act of placing flowers in a coffin as a final gesture of love and respect.

Abstract

The author recounts a poignant encounter with a woman offering her baby's unused crib and stroller, inferring the baby's passing and the parents' silent grief. This scene evokes deep reflections on the quiet reverence shown to the deceased, particularly in the careful handling of the baby's belongings. The author connects this to a quote by Mia Couto, emphasizing the tenderness with which people approach the dying and the dead, as if to compensate for life's unspoken regrets. The act of arranging flowers in a coffin is likened to the painstaking effort to express love and remorse through each deliberate placement, acknowledging that death reveals the limitations of our words and actions in life. The narrative extends to a personal memory of the author's family mourning the loss of a loved one, underscoring the universal nature of grief and the shared human experience of irreparable loss and the respect paid to the departed.

Opinions

The author perceives the woman's offer of the baby's crib and stroller as a heart-wrenching act, signifying a deep, internalized pain despite her composed demeanor.
There is a strong belief that the gentle care taken with deceased infants and adults is a manifestation of unconditional love and a way to make amends for past grievances.
The author suggests that the final act of placing flowers in a coffin is an intimate, solemn ritual that encapsulates our final goodbye, filled with unspoken emotions and a profound sense of respect for the deceased.
The text conveys

“Slowly like Someone who puts Flowers in a coffin” (Mia Couto)

I kept thinking about the mother looking at the empty crib

“Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels”

Some days ago I witnessed a scene that touched me. I was at a certain place when a woman and a young man appeared. The woman asked the girl who was attending me the contact of someone because she wanted to offer the crib and stroller of a baby who barely used them. It sounded like a punch to my stomach. The death of a little baby will always be a very sad thing.

The young man just looked at the floor in silence, he must be the father of the little baby, for sure. I kept thinking about the mother looking at the empty crib. The woman spoke with the property of those who are strong. She offered the cradle naturally as if it were a mere object, but this did not mean that she did not suffer. No. I have already learned that there is a huge gap between a pain buried deep in the chest and what we externalize.

This fact left me speechless for the moment and it would have served me to reflect a little, that’s all. But just that day I had read a sentence by Mia Couto making a comparison: “… slowly like someone who puts flowers in a coffin.” As a cherry brings another cherry, I remembered the little baby. I am always touched when I see how people deal so carefully with dying babies or even adults. They do everything as delicately as if they were going to feel pain, suffer, or cry.

The little baby brought the memory of my brothers and my husband wearing my dead father, stretched out on that cold stone of the hospital morgue, while we, me and my sister, in tears, were embraced by relatives. And everything brought a greater reflection. This moment of dealing with the lifeless body does not support words, it is charged with a tacit silence because anything that is said will be unnecessary or inappropriate. What move us to take care of the body that no longer feels pain? It is respect. Respect with death, respect for the person who left life. We take care of the lifeless bodies as if we poured all our love on them and so it is.

It is impossible to put flowers in a coffin hastily. It is the final farewell. It is the final task when the family arranges each flower, everything delicately. Everything we lacked in life we completed in death. In front of a beloved person lying lifeless in a coffin, we bring out the whole life, everyday fact, every laugh, every sadness. And each flower symbolizing a desire to say something that was not said, an unforgivable absence, a harsh word that came out unintentionally, in short, each flower symbolizing a gesture of love.

We are humans, it is impossible to live without hurting, without pain and wounds and facing death we realize we can never do anything else. And finally, one last cherry appeared. I remembered that by side of my dead father there was a deceased young man and two sisters crying for him. We hugged the girls and comforted each other. There we were people who suffered and our pain was just one. We never knew who they were, but that fact was registered in my mind.

Anyway, life is beautiful and very precious, but many times for me it doesn’t seem beautiful, either ugly, or happy, or sad. Often life seems to be just difficult.