My sister Bethaney died on October 13, 2020, in Madang, Papua New Guinea. She had just turned 36 in August. The cause was a severe case of cerebral malaria. It was sudden and unexpected. We knew she had fallen sick, but my family has weathered countless illnesses over the years in PNG so we have a good sense of severity. This one snuck up on us. My parents called me at 5:40pm PST and they were performing CPR in the haus sik (hospital) by 8:40. It was mid-afternoon Tuesday in PNG time.

My parents are in the US, in Tennessee, where my dad is from. Because of travel restrictions, none of us will be able to go to PNG. If it was any other year, Autumn and I would already be on our way to PNG, as would my parents. Everyone that knew Bethaney has unanimously agreed that she would want to be buried in Likan, the Waran village where she and I grew up. So I don’t think COVID made any difference in us getting her body back to the US – she was at home in PNG, and we would be going there, not bringing her back here.

On news of her death, members of our Waran family immediately made plans to get to Madang to ensure she had family with her – knowing we could not. There has been a haus krai (literally “house (of) cry(ing)”; customs vary a bit but this this blog post is a pretty good description) set up for her in Madang, the town where she lived as an adult. It’s been moved to a bigger location once already.

Malaria is an illness the PNG people know and understand well. Everyone in PNG has lost someone to malaria or its complications. It may sound odd, but I find it fitting that Bethaney died from an illness that takes so many Papua New Guineans – because she always saw herself as more Papua New Guinean than anything else.

On Monday PNG time, the body will be flown to Likan, the village where we grew up, and where several of you visited last summer. There, the funeral preparations will begin. There will be another haus krai, and the mourning will commence. This is the part that I am most heartbroken to not be present for. In PNG, mourning is intense, it is full body, it is loud, and it is characterized by wailing. It is not something that can be described. It is pure anguish, laid bare for all to see, and there is no shame in the pain. It is collective, like so many customs in PNG.

When I returned in 2018 after being gone for 18 years, dozens of village women hugged me with such ferocity one would think I was their only child. All of those women and more will wail for hours at the loss of my sister, and it crushes me that I cannot be there to wail with them. These are the times when I miss Papua New Guinea the most. Their way is to go through the pain, forcefully, and in doing so cauterize it. After the wailing, which will last at least a full day, there will be little crying. There will be loss, yes, and sadness, but the heart-wrenching, debilitating grief will be dealt with. There is no other way to survive so much death. As my dad said yesterday, “Life goes on with or without us.” I fear that I will not get the cauterization I would from the PNG custom, and that the pain will haunt me long after it should. But Bethaney herself dealt with the worst sort of death and heartbreak and found the strength to continue, and she and I are cut from the same cloth. I’ll be OK. We’ll all be OK.

While Autumn, my parents, and I cannot be there personally, there is a contingent of local ex-pats that will go in our stead. Jesse Pryor, who grew up with me and Bethaney and, like her, returned to PNG to live and work, will be there to represent our family. We had to have permission from the Provincial Administrator to bury Bethaney in Likan since she is an ex-pat, and Jesse worked to secure that permission. In the letter of approval, the Provincial Administrator wrote. “Likan is the village she called home, and where she was raised in her childhood. She is a ’trupela meri Sepik,’ who was fluent in the local languages, customs, and lifestyle of the home where she grew up. I see no reason why her family’s wishes to be laid to rest in the village of Likan not be honored.”

When Jesse forwarded the letter on to us, my dad thanked him for securing it. Jesse said, “My pleasure. I’d charge hell with a bucket of water for Bethaney, and she’d do the same for me.” I love that quote – it sums up the fierce loyalty and friendship she engendered with everyone she knew. Would that we could all have such relationships in our lives.