Amira Bashir

As we know, the end of life experience is universal, the attitude and behaviors or the way we express grief are very culturally bounded. Death and grief become a normal part of life event and all cultures have developed ways to cope with death and dying. I interview one of my close friend Amira Bashir regarding to her culture and perspective of death and dying. She was a Somali woman and a very religious person. She also experienced death and dying in her family. Shel lost her dad and grandmother. She was a Somali who follows the practice associated with Islam as well as her family. In addition, I would like to talk about how my friend Amira experiences or perspective regarding to death and dying, how the grieving and mourning relate to beliefs about the meaning of life and death; I will talk about her community perspectives on euthanasia or technology to prolong lives, living wills, and finally, compare her cultural aspect of death and dying to my culture or religion.
Q: How the person experiences death and dying and how that experience may be different than your ethnic/cultural experience?
Amira told me that she experienced death and dying when she was 20 years old. She lost her dad
and her grandmother in a near time of period. For Somali culture, most of the funeral service held at home. She stated that “the deceased body’s washed by the leader of the religion called Iman. Iman is like a pop that clean and washed the deceased’s body before prayer service. They put the body in Mosque” (A. Bashir, personal interview, November 21, 2016).
If I have to compare her cultural aspect of death and dying to my culture, there were something similar and different regarding to coping strategies and how we perform mourning rituals. I grew up in a Christian family. I lost my death when I was 19 years old. My experiences were different from her. In the US, after a person died, we let the funeral clerk to take care of the body. We usually have a funeral service in funeral home. For my culture, if a person dies at home, the family washed the death’s body before the funeral clerk come and take the body.
The similar thing between her culture and my culture is that, the community was very helpful and supportive.
They will come and support the deceased family. Some people come and stay overnight with the family to console the family. For her culture, the way they cope with the loss is to accept the truth, read the Quran and pray. Even children that know how to pray, will pray. For my culture, we usually sing, pray, and read the bible. We were black dress or shirt to show our deep sympathy and respect during the mourning period. On the other hand, for Somalis culture, the spouse of the deceased wear white attire or white to cover their head. For women who lost their husband, they wore white dresses and white hair attire for 4 months (A. Bashir, personal interview, November 21,
2016).