Jamaican Dead Yard - A True Story

When our 5-month-old grandson, Jaheim Miller died the entire town went into mourning, and as is the Jamaican custom, undertook a "dead yard" process that lasted most of a week. Dead yard is a kind of public wake, to help the family and the community come to grips with their grief. Friends, neighbours, and well-wishers come by every night for sound system music, dominoes, drink, smoke, and food; and they stay, very late into the night. The night before the funeral is the biggest dead yard celebration. Everybody shows up -- even all the taxi drivers who ply the road to town. In our case, because of this particularly tragic death, hundreds of people showed up. And the story ran in the Gleaner and the Mirror, so wherever we went in MoBay people seemed to know. I was amazed at the universal outpouring of condolence and support. The saying, "It takes a village," could never be more true than it is here.