The woman who gave Ghana Kwasi Twum has been given back to her maker - albeit reluctantly.

A short illness broke the seal of immortality bottled in her mortal body. Her life has been poured out. She is gone. And so a decent number of family and close relations showed up at the Kotoka International Airport to meet the remains of Naana Nueki Carboo Opetoto I.

Photo: At the cargo section of the Kotoka International Airport

The body of Naana Nueki Carboo Opetoto did a brave tour of Accra like a busy tourist with a deadline to beat and immortality to meet.

It was brave because three stops in a terrific Friday traffic in Accra requires a certain amount of determination to contain the noise and the jam.

At the family home in Mataheko to the Central Mosque at Abossey Okai and finally to Gethsemane Memorial Garden at Shiashie, where the dead can listen to watery music composed by a small fountain inside the green garden.

Kwasi Twum was a very active proton at all the stops. He sort of invested energy meant to mourn into activity meant for the organizers.

He would throw a hand directing the sharing of bottled water and later make a brisk walk to whisper an instruction to another.

But he sobered down when he reached the chiseled out pit at גת שמנים, the Hebrew word for Gethsemane. If you can pronounce it, you could explain death.

His knees gave way like a faulty scaffold as he knelt before the pit long enough for the brain and the eye to shutter in, one last image filed under the cranial section containing memory.

Down on all fours, comforted only by a white handkerchief, a son beheld his last of a woman he beheld first when he was born. His mother was now a hallowed piece of ground.

He was not restrained from mourning. He was granted a respectful moment with his mother – a sort of communication that allows no third parties much like the unique unspoken conversation between a baby and a breast.

It was a Muslim burial. And so the National Chief Imam, Dr. Sheikh Nuhu Sharubutu, surrounded by clerics and a few family members arched the burial site under a canopy where prayers were said. A Muslim burial is a Japanese high-speed train – blinding fast.

Photo: Inside the Gethsemane Memorial Garden and the canopy where the final funeral rites was held

Suddenly, the group disengaged, the Muslim national leader headed for his 4-wheel drive and with holy speed departed the grounds.

It was a funeral of cheerful mourners – and for good reason. Here is the accomplished son of a consummate mother. And accomplished sons have accomplished friends. So Stanbic CEO Alhassan Andani, the man with an eye for a mine, Sir Sam Jonah, Bishop James Saah, Ato Sarpong and yes – NPP leading figure Alan Kyerematen was also there.

NPP stalwart Alan Kyerematen

Photo: [R] One of Ghana's finest legal brains, Yonny Kulendi

Photo: One of the finest voices of God's will Bishop James Saah

Stanbic Bank CEO Alhassan Andani with his friend Kwasi Twum

The Multimedia Group crowd was a near compulsory bonus and a bonus of love too.

It was time for comforting hugs – perhaps a cosmopolitan gesture of grief. Friends showered the CEO of The Multimedia Group Limited with tremendous love.

Standing in twos and threes the mourners served a chat. The older, the more burdened, the more they felt glad to meet each other again at a funeral.

Photo: Former Anglogold CEO Sam Jonah has a word with former politician and Reverend minister Ms. Joyce Aryee

Hearty conversations led many out of Gethsemane in a gentle stream. By 3:30 pm, the busy tour with one silent tourist was over at the Gethsemane Memorial Garden.

Kwasi Twum and his family walked away with a whole 75-year life packaged into a memory like huge gigs on tiny drives.

Death is a huge sea. Life is a huge boat. You tumble out of it when you get seasick. Naana Nueki Carboo Opetoto was seasick.

 

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