The long, frustrating and traumatic wait for the Mutavhatsindi family to bury their beloved gogo, Alidzulwi Mutavhatsindi, whose body has been missing and buried by another family for more than three weeks, finally came to an end over the weekend.

Mutavhatsindi (82) of Masakona village in the Vuwani area was supposed to have been buried a fortnight ago, but could not as a result of a body mix-up at the mortuary where her body was kept.

The family underwent a lot of pain and financial loss in trying to find the missing body.

They had to go to different villages with the body of an unknown gogo, who the undertaker said was their relative, trying to locate the family of the old woman. They were finally able to connect with the family of the dead woman, who indicated that the dead woman was indeed their relative and that it implied that they had buried the wrong body.

The two families thought it would be a simple procedure to exhume the other body and to bury the right person. That was not to be as they had to go through the courts and use lawyers to apply for orders for them.

On Thursday last week, the two families sighed with relief when the court granted the order to exhume. On Friday morning, the two families gathered at the local graveyard at Ha-Raliphaswa in the Nzhelele area where the body had been buried.

Grief-stricken as they were, they had to wait while undertakers exhumed the body. It was put in a hearse and taken to the mortuary, where it was washed before being taken to Masakona for burial. The burial poured salt into wounds which had not had a chance to begin healing.

Family members gathered at the local Masakona cemetery for the burial, but other relatives, who had come before for the first burial, could not attend as it was during the week.

Family representative Ms Humbulani Matoro, who went through all the pain and through all the steps until the body was found, said the burial was a relief to the family. "We went through a lot of pain and suffering. It was very traumatic for us to go from one village to the next with an unknown body in a car, trying to find our beloved gogo. Now that we found her and gave her a decent send-off, her soul will rest in peace, unlike when she was buried many kilometres away from her own relatives.”

She added that they were hurt, “but we feel we should forgive whatever happened. Life should go on and maybe it happened for a purpose, that people should draw lessons from the whole experience," she said.

She said their losses were immense, but they were just happy that the undertaker had pledged to take care of them. “We bought all the groceries; we even bought a cow and slaughtered it for the mourners and everything was prepared, except for the body. We are happy we are burying her today,” she said.

The son of Munzhedzi Mabirimisa, Livhuwani, said there were some challenges in the family. "We are happy that it has come to pass and we are going to give my mother a decent funeral on Saturday (tomorrow)," he said.