The last time
he walked in.

The church received him.

He never missed a service here. Not in war. Not in old age. Not once that anyone can remember. At 16:15 he came through these doors for the last time, and for the first time in a hundred years he did not walk in on his own feet.

Uncle Dickson brought him the whole way from Gulu and never left the cortège. His children were waiting at the door to receive him — Aunt Susan, Aunt Betty, Auntie Joyce, Uncle Francis, Uncle Ochola, Uncle Okello. Six of the twelve, standing where their father had stood every Sunday of their childhood, receiving him.

Some grief is a testimony.

Vincent was not family by blood. He was Baba's friend and his caretaker, which in the end is a harder job and a closer one. He is the one who knew what Baba ate, how he slept, which mornings were good.

When the casket came in, Vincent broke. He had to be held up and walked down the aisle. Nobody looked away and nobody told him to stop.

There is a kind of grief that is a testimony — you only weep like that for a man you actually served.

He loved white.

He loved white. He wore it well, and he wore it on purpose. His casket was white. He came into his church dressed the way he had always dressed for it.

There was something unmistakably Baba about that last entrance. Even in the casket, he arrived in his own language.

He was not carried in. He was escorted.

Then the women began to ululate.

There is something Africa knows that the rest of the world has to be taught. That sound is not only grief. It makes the men brave and it lets the women scream — and inside the scream there is joy, and there is victory. It is the noise a family makes when it refuses to send its father away quietly.

His choir escorted him up the aisle. They did not carry him in mourning. They carried him in triumph. And he was laid at the front of the church — at the font, in the seat of the guest of honour, the place he had earned by turning up for a hundred years.

He was not carried in. He was escorted.

“Are you washed in the blood?”

“Are you washed? Yes, I am in the blood.” — Kilwoki ki remo? Ee, kilwoka ki remo.

That was the song that carried him in. Of all the songs they could have chosen, they chose the one that asks a question and then answers it. He had answered it a long time ago.

The choir opened the gates of heaven. The traditional harps and their bows produced melodies even Mozart would have been jealous of. And the chacha — the shaker or rattle made from corrugated tin with small stones inside — carried the bright rhythm of a people saying goodbye without surrendering their joy.

Celebrate him with every celebratory bone.

Uncle Francis spoke in church for the siblings. He introduced all Baba's siblings that he had outlived, then told us Baba was the third born.

He reminded us that while he had lost a father, we were gathered to celebrate a man who had outlived some of his own children. There were few friends from Baba's generation left to stand beside him. He had outlived his contemporaries.

Then he gave us the instruction we needed: celebrate his father with all the celebratory bones in our bodies.

What a Friend We Have in Jesus.

The service ended with “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” “Oh, what needless pain we bear.”

We walked out carrying the words, the music, and one another. The church had given Baba back to us for one final service. Then the doors opened, the choir led the way, and we took him home.