We gave them two goats.

A few months ago, my mother’s home health care worker,  Grace, told me that her mother had died & she needed to go to Nigeria to bury her.

Grace’s mother owned land in Nigeria & a house with twelve rooms & had carefully saved the money Grace sent home.

The last time Grace visited, her mother gave her access to her bank account & entrusted her with all her important papers.  And asked Grace to bury her on her own land.

As Grace prepared to return to Nigeria to bury her mother, she arranged for a friend to take care of her obligations to my mother.  But she seemed uneasy.

We talked about it, because Grace & I talk about a lot of things.  About female circumcision, about Nigerian wedding customs that are played out here, about life in an adopted country.

As we talked about her journey to bury her mother, I learned that Grace did not fear resistance or discord from her siblings, but from her mother’s two sisters.

So I advised her to make copies of every piece of paper she had from her mother, take them with her & first thing hire a lawyer in Nigeria.

When Grace returned from Nigeria, she showed me photos of her family dressed in splendor & told me the story of burying her mother.

Grace’s fears about her aunts proved to be true.  First, they chose a casket & told Grace upon her arrival it was $700  (Grace, the alleged wealthy American, was expected to pay for it).

Grace went to the mortuary & learned it was $400.    She insisted on a less expensive casket, because as she told me, “It was going into the ground.”

The aunts insisted that Grace give them four rooms in her mother’s house.  Grace rebuffed them, explaining, “This is my mother’s house.  It belongs to her children.”

Grace’s aunts argued that because they had been her mother’s family long before Grace & her siblings arrived on the scene.  Therefore, in their version of family ties, they had first claim on Grace’s mother’s estate.

Grace insisted:  “This is my mother’s house.  It belongs to her children.  We will not give you any rooms.”

The two aunts tried another tactic, demanding that Grace buy them a cow.

A cow in Nigeria costs roughly $400 USD.  The average annual income in Nigeria is $900 USD. A very expensive gift for two women who contributed nothing to the cost of their sister's funeral or the celebration feast honoring her life.

Grace explained to her aunts that she & her siblings could not possibly buy them a cow.  They had to buy a cow for the feast to follow her mother’s funeral.  Not to mention the rest of the food & wine.   

As Grace told me story of burying her mother, on her mother’s land, I remarked that while I understood cultural differences between Nigeria & Texas, but I could not imagine demanding a part of my sister’s estate from her daughter.

With disgust & a tone revealing a deeper sadness, Grace replied:

This is not about cultural differences, Miss Jaki, it is about greed.

Over the years, I have grown used to Grace calling me Miss Jaki, just as she calls my mother Miss Jean.  It bothers me to write it, reminiscent of an era in the south I would rather not re-enact. 

 

But I want to tell Grace’s story of burying her mother as I heard & felt it.

Grace thanked me for my advice to get a lawyer to protect her mother’s estate.  The lawyer managed to get a year long stay against the estate.
               

But not before Grace’s aunts pillaged their sister’s house.  Including the last $400 Grace sent her mother, the price of a cow.  That happened almost as soon as Grace’s mother died.          

Grace will have to return to Nigeria before the stay on her mother’s estate ends & she will have to take all the papers in her possession with her.  So I asked her to get a safety deposit box at her bank & store the papers there.  
 

As our conversation ended, I asked Grace how her aunts took 
her refusal to buy them a cow.  She replied:
]

We gave them two goats.