The Return

By Admin 22 Jun 2026

DMG | Essay

By Mawra Zaw

Large and small vehicles sped along the highway under the scorching afternoon sun. On one side of the road stood a row of modern high-rise buildings, elegant in their contemporary architecture. It was the Yadana Rose Condominium Complex.

Inside the compound were playgrounds for children. Carefully maintained lawns glowed green. The internal roads were spotless, lined neatly with flowers on both sides. There seemed to be no electricity outages. In weather as hot and humid as this, air-conditioning systems ensured a comfortable and pleasant way of life.

Right beside this housing complex, however, stood a settlement of makeshift huts. Whenever it rained, the area turned into a sea of mud. Pools of stagnant water collected beneath the houses, attracting mosquitoes and flies. There was no electricity, no electric stoves, no fans. Some children, when the rain came, ran shirtless onto the concrete roads to bathe in the downpour.

The surroundings were dirty and littered with garbage. Most of the residents were casual laborers who had come to the city seeking livelihoods.

Looking at these two worlds side by side, I could not help thinking that they represented the stark divide between wealth and poverty in present-day Yangon.

We were on our way to a small house, perhaps no more than ten square feet in size.

The Yangon heat was oppressive.

The roof was made of corrugated iron sheets, already rusted and decaying. The front and back extensions were patched together with thatch and tarpaulin. Bamboo mats served as walls. Two makeshift partitions inside the house had been opened up, seemingly to make room for visitors attending a funeral.

The floor was covered with a faded dark-blue mat, parts of which had already worn away.

A man lay motionless upon it.

Beneath him was a small bamboo bier. His entire body was covered with an old pink blanket.

At the head of the body sat a small Buddhist prayer gathering. Nearby was a plate containing rice and fish curry. Beside it stood a glass of reddish tamarind liquor, offered by his younger brother—his only surviving close relative—as a final farewell.

A small shrine stood near the front pillar of the house.

There was a flower vase, dried out and covered with cobwebs.

A picture of the Mahamuni Buddha of Arakan.

And resting on the shrine were three lottery tickets, perhaps relics of a life spent hoping for luck.

I wondered whether those lottery tickets were silently mocking the funeral from above.

At the foot of the body sat a small wooden box, half-open. A mosquito net and worn-out clothes spilled from it.

That, I thought, was probably the sum of the family’s possessions.

A while later, the Yangon rain began to fall heavily.

Water dripped through holes in the roof.

Flies swarmed over the body.

The air filled with their buzzing.

Including myself, only three or four friends had come to pay our final respects.

There is an Indian saying:

“When we are born, we cry while those around us smile. Live your life so that when you die, others cry while you smile.”

As I looked at my departed friend, I found myself wondering whether he had lived the kind of life that would allow him to leave this world with such a smile.

Everything we had heard about him revolved around alcohol.

The two brothers had struggled through life’s hardships together. Over time, they turned to drinking.

Living amid war, they accumulated grief and pain. They became separated from family and loved ones. Alcohol became a temporary refuge, a brief escape from suffering.
His younger brother did not even realize he had died.

Sleeping beside him as usual, he assumed his older brother would wake up the next morning.
But he never did.

The man, in his forties, had left behind his only brother.

Beneath a leaking roof, with rainwater dripping steadily through the cracks, a monk from a nearby monastery was invited to recite prayers. The funeral rites were completed with only a handful of mourners present.

It was the final act of dignity we could offer another human being as he began a new journey.

Though poor, our people still try to send the dead on their final journey with dignity.

Yet many who perish amid war, burned alive, blown apart, or left unrecognized, are denied even that final dignity.

Who bears responsibility for that?

Here was a man who had studied law and graduated from university.

Who could have imagined that he would die alone in a fragile shack, with no relatives nearby, no mourners, and no family gathered around him?

His parents must have struggled immensely to educate him.

Did he ever imagine his life would end this way?

If he alone is to blame for his fate, then is not the broken era into which he was born an even greater culprit?

The Buddha taught that human life is exceedingly rare.

And that life itself is as fleeting as a bubble upon the ocean.

Knowing how rare human life is, and how brief it remains, what have we truly accomplished with it?

For generations, people have lost their lives amid war.

Those who possess power and wealth speak grandly of peace from lives of privilege and abundance.

Men like my friend sit in small liquor shops, chewing roasted beans and sipping cheap alcohol while speaking of peace.

Yet the war never ends.

My friend, born in a land scarred by conflict, could not even return to the place where his parents and relatives lived.

Instead, he said goodbye halfway along the road.

To register him as an unclaimed body, we needed police documents and hospital certificates.

Ironically, because he still had a rightful owner, his family we had to prove it.

Fortunately, people in the neighborhood helped, and the process was not too difficult.

Shortly after one in the afternoon, the funeral vehicle arrived.

Perhaps because it was a poor man’s funeral, the volunteer worker looked stern as he filled out paperwork.

The body was loaded into the vehicle.

Rain continued to fall.

His final moment as a human being had arrived.

We followed in another car.

There was no coffin.

Only a mat and a blanket accompanied him.

At Kyisu Cemetery, his body was prepared for cremation.

At the same time, another funeral was taking place, a 61-year-old woman.

Her family members gently pushed her polished coffin forward.

Relatives dressed in white mourning robes.

Tears flowed freely as they said goodbye.

Her coffin was beautiful.

Soon both bodies would become ashes.

But the woman would likely have children and relatives who would collect her remains, build a memorial, and remember her.

My friend’s farewell was different.

Quiet.

Simple.

Perhaps closer to the true nature of existence itself.

The crematorium staff took charge of both bodies.

We returned to our car.

The last thing I saw was the two bodies entering the cremation chamber with the help of the staff.

Then the great metal doors closed.

And we went home.

After all, aren’t we all simply returning home?

People leave for work in the morning and return home in the evening.

Children go to school and return home at day’s end.

Whether our home is grand or humble, we all return home.

And at the end of life, we return to the house called death.

As the American writer Mark Twain once said:

“A person is never truly dead as long as someone remembers them.”

As long as there is someone who remembers us, no matter how many years pass, we do not truly die.

That may be the only thing we can take with us.

But when cruel tyrants and monsters of humanity die, who will remember them?

And if they are remembered, will people offer them loving-kindness—or curses?

I do not know.

My friend, at least, seemed to have harmed no one.

He may not have done great things for the world, but neither did he commit great wrongs.

That is why his departure felt peaceful and free.

In my view, his return journey was far more dignified and comforting than the return journeys of many famous dictators.

Anyone who is born into this world must one day return.

Yet, as poet Thitsa Paing Soe wrote in his poem The Return:

“Though I carry nothing with me but a meaningless pride,

Even if I can take nothing at all,

I still wish to return neatly dressed,

With the hairstyle my mother liked.”

Whether we are returning to our mother’s home, or returning to the embrace of the earth itself, perhaps all we truly wish for is the chance to make that final journey with dignity.
And if we are granted that chance, perhaps that alone is enough.