Prayer for the Deceased...

40 Days, 40 Nights...

Tajik tradition for honoring their dead is 40 days long. Family members are required to stay at their home for 40 days straight to receive guests who have come to pay their respect. Women (and perhaps men) are expected to weep for 40 straight days. Men wear their traditional Tajik ‘chopon’ and ‘tupi teka’ and hang around outside their home to receive guests while the women stay inside. All guests are to go to the home to say a prayer for the deceased…

Why am I thinking about this? Well, in the past few weeks, I’ve witnessed a few of these proceedings and it is quite an affair. Can you imagine sitting at the office with the window wide opened and hearing screaming and crying resonating from outside all the while you are working? It is a very bizarre experience. What really stabs at the heart is when you hear that those dead are a 15 and 9 year old boys who have died from cancer. It’s devastating and once again proves that cancer is a universal disease. No man, woman nor child from all race and ethnicity are exempted from this horrendous disease.

Just this morning, I noticed many men at the same house where the funeral traditions were held and it turns out that tragedy has struck the family again with their grandmother also passing over the May Day holiday. A coworker told me that there is a saying here that goes like this, "grief does not come alone."

Prayer to the Deceased

Dear Heavenly Father;

May Your Hand lay upon those who have lost loved ones

in these past few weeks in Khujand;

Cover those with comfort and peace;

Strength to heal from such tragedies

and the ability to move forward in life;

Be the light for family and friends during this darkness in their lives.

In Jesus' holy and precious name, Amen