Golden Adornment ~ Tinuola Olateju

by SLY on June 3rd, 2010

I’ve never had to pick jewelry for the dead and that’s how the day started. Sunday. Land in Minnesota. Pick up rental car. Meet Lola, Ariel, Chris, Wale and Joke at Mall of America. Pick jewelry for the dead. Don’t break down at Macy’s. Things are too pretty here. They probably have a fire evacuation procedure but there’s no standard protocol for mental breakdown due to grief. Picking the jewelry seemed sacred and profane. Necessary and unneeded. Ritualistically, I can understand. There is symbolism here. There is meaning. But we couldn’t decide between two gold necklaces. And it all just seemed too much. I didn’t want to do it. I never thought I’d be helping my best friend pick the jewelry we’d bury her 15 year old sister in. There is no standard protocol for this.

Once it was decided, the gold bangles, the delicate earrings, the gold cross…everyone wanted to pay. We wanted to divide each piece and pay. Lola clung to all the jewelry. She didn’t want us to touch it. She didn’t want our money. We kept asking to pay for it. And she clung tighter and tighter. Then she cried. Right in the middle of Macy’s, she just started crying. Wale held her but then told her to share. Joke needed air. Chris gave space. Ariel rubbed her back. Wale held her face and told her to share. I laughed. “Lola, you have to share,” I repeated. She chuckled and sobbed at the same time. “I don’t want to share,” she said.

Later on we went to purcahse the jewelry. The cashier was standard. “Oh this is pretty,” she told Wale of the bangles. “Who’s this for?” she asked. A deathly silence fell between us because there was literally a death between us. “A friend,” Wale said. She asked where we were from and what brought us into town. No one said anything. Finally Lola told her a funeral. Her baby sister’s funeral. She rang up the rest of our purchase in silence.

I’m sick of people asking us what we are in town for. Why we are shopping for clothes. Why we need to rent a car. Why we need to rent a hotel room. I know they are doing their job. But what are we supposed to say. Every time we are asked any question of the sort, we are put through an emotional ringer. And we are all just a little tired.

Tinuola Olateju

February 15, 1995 – May 29, 2010