Pat Bishop's last words

Carolyn Cooper, Contributor

Dead people should have no say in their funeral. Precisely because they are dead! It's nothing but vanity to try to legislate exactly how you should be laid to rest. Public figures, especially, should not even bother to fool themselves into thinking that their death belongs to them alone. In any case, what can you do if your dear and not-so-dear relatives and friends decide to disrespect your wishes? Haunt them? Right.

But you really can't stop larger-than-life people from trying to 'run tings' from the afterlife. So in a column titled 'Rights of Passage' (Sunday Gleaner, February 21, 2010), I advocated the Bob Marley model as the ideal solution to the private/public dilemma. Public figures deserve two funerals: one for the living and one for the dead. There should be a relatively private ceremony according to the wishes of the deceased; and a public memorial to accommodate the masses.

I was reminded of the recurring problem of how to mourn our Caribbean icons when I read the Trinidad Express account of the funeral of Pat Bishop. Despite all the talk of Caribbean integration, we still don't know enough about each other across the region. So many Jamaicans will not readily recognise that name. Painter, musician, academic, fearless cultural activist, feisty advocate of both 'classical' and 'popular' forms of artistic expression, Pat Bishop was the quintessential Trini woman of wicked words and quick wit.

But the reach of her daring work extended far beyond the boundaries of the twin-island republic. For example, for two years Pat lectured in the history of art and design at the former Jamaica School of Art. Incidentally, the schools of music, drama, art and dance have now been collectively dubbed the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts. Some of us prefer the generic names that honour the legacy of all Caribbean artists, whether 'intuitive', or 'non-intuitive'.

'Let there be no music'

Pat left precise instructions about how her rites of passage should be conducted: "Please! Make no announcement until I am safely laid away at Mucurapo (Cemetery). Sister G (Gillian Bishop, her sister) has the grave paper. Should the news leak out, take me to All Saints in the plainest possible coffin and place the attached photo on it together with my cow bell (percussion instrument). Let the priest say the absolute minimum. Let there be NO MUSIC (her emphasis). Ask people to sit quietly for a little while - half-hour is quite long enough. Despatch [sic] me with the undertaker to Mucurapo. THANKS!"

I simply don't understand how Pat could possibly have expected that news of her death could be concealed, whatever the circumstances. Her vain wish that no announcement of her death be made until she was safely buried turned out to be particularly ludicrous since she made such a dramatic exit.

Pat Bishop died last weekend in grand prophetic prose: "I have no words to add to this discourse. I have spoken at meetings like this all my life. I have no more words to add. I am very tired. Maybe I am too old now." Perhaps Pat did smell her death. Those turned out to be her last words. But I imagine that she was being ironic. Or, as the Trinis would say, it was 'picong': the stinging wit that demolishes an opponent.

Having endured many, many meetings about 'culture and development', Pat could tell her colleagues a thing or two about the futility of 'old talk'. This meeting, which left Pat speechless, had a rather elastic brief. According to a report in the Trinidad Express, it was a committee meeting of 'Government's High-Level Expert Panel to Guide the Implementation of Arts, Cultural and Entrepreneurial Projects and Patriotism Project'. Quite a mouthful! No wonder Pat was tired.

Weeping at Panorama

The last time I saw Pat in full flight was in April at the BOCAS Lit Fest held in Port-of-Spain. She participated in the opening event, a celebration of the life and work of Keith Smith, one of the Caribbean's master journalists. Pat was one of four luminaries who read selections from Keith's classic newspaper columns. She shared the stage with mas man Peter Minshall, eminent journalist Raoul Pantin and B.C. Pires, himself a popular columnist.

Appropriately enough, Pat read 'Bradley's Monument', which was Keith Smith's tribute to steel band arranger Clive Bradley who died in 2005. Pat was a vibrant activist in the steel band movement of Trinidad and Tobago. She worked with the Desperadoes Steel Orchestra, taking them on eight tours of the US. Pat made history in the 1990s when she directed the first combined pan and symphony orchestra - Desperadoes and the New York Pops Symphony. She also directed the celebrated Lydian Singers.

I cannot imagine why Pat would have banned music from her funeral. Perhaps she didn't want any weeping. In her own remembrance of Bradley, posted on the Trinbago Pan website, Pat recalled, "Nobody handled the minor-key mode like Bradley. Nobody could make you weep at Panorama which, of course, is supposed to be a time of unbridled joyousness, but he captured the tragic underside of the human condition and gave it a voice that was utterly awesome, authentic and Trinidadian."

Pat might just as well have been talking about herself. For she, too, understood the unpredictable way in which tragedy disrupts celebration. And laughter complicates the sorrows of death. So I laugh in joyful sadness at the way in which Pat's plans for her death were so spectacularly sabotaged by life.

I hope the government of Trinidad and Tobago puts on a huge fête in Pat Bishop's honour at which there will be much music: folk, opera, steel pan, calypso, soca, rapso, chutney, parang, reggae, dancehall - the whole works. Nothing like the quiet departure Pat so curiously wanted.

Carolyn Cooper is a professor of literary and cultural studies at the UWI, Mona. Visit her bilingual blog at http://carolynjoycooper.wordpress.com/. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and karokupa@gmail.com.