Common Ground

Yesterday I attended my first funeral, for someone I had never met. It was an unplanned outing for me, and at first I was very apprehensive about attending. I could see myself feeling awkward for the next two hours. Not only was I attending a funeral for a person I didn't know, I was attending one where I knew nobody, besides my girlfriend. More importantly, I wasn't wearing black.

It was a beautiful day, which I thought to be quite ironic on such an occasion. I had always pictured funerals to be dark, cloudy and rainy. Especially for this funeral. The ceremony was for two teenagers, killed in a horrific car crash the weekend before. From what I had gathered, four were killed, and one still struggling for life in hospital. All from the same car, traveling home after a wedding. This car collided with another car on the other side of the road; the driver of this car had died too.

Approximately fifty people were there by the time we arrived, and this number doubled as the casket was brought into the cemetery grounds. Immediately I searched the crowd, curious as to who are the parents of this child. It was quite obvious. They were behind the casket, barely able to walk, to breathe; they were chanting in a slurred tone, muffled with deep wails and sighs; their face flooded with tears.

It was terrible. The immediate family walked behind the casket, all were obviously deeply moved and sad, but I will never forget the parents' face. As the casket was placed over the burial site, the crowd moved in, encompassing the grave. The priest began the ceremony and I stepped away from the crowd. I felt the need for space, to step back and see the bigger picture.

Although the entire ceremony was in Vietnamese, which I cannot understand, it was clear as to what was being said. It was an amazing experience. The ceremony conjured images and thoughts in my head that I had never seriously considered. What would happen if I died in such a way? What would I do if any of my friends died? How would I react? What kind of ending is this to look forward to after a lifetime? I’ve always felt that the best way to understand was through empathy. But this seemed out of my league. I walked further away from the crowd as a teary sensation began in my eyes.

The casket was then lowered, and in the background contemporary ‘appropriate’ pop music was played. This was the most dramatic event of the ceremony. The mother, father and grandmother all had to be controlled by the rest of the family.

The trio fell on their knees, on common ground.

Their cry’s spawned the group to follow suit, and soon the crowd turned into a crying choir. As the casket was set, and the dirt was being thrown to cover the grave, the trio attempted to jump into the grave with their lost loved one. After being held back and controlled, the trio were dragged away from the site. The mother and grandmother were huddled into the car, away from the choir; the father, kneeling on the ground, looking up into the sky. His face held an expression, as if he was asking “why?” to God.

Flowers were then thrown into the grave and the crowd began dispersing. I left the ceremony almost immediately afterwards, shook up in the midst of what had happened. All the standard clichés and theories of life clouded my thoughts.

The awkward feeling I had had disappeared. In the end we are all mortals, all are susceptible to the loss of a life.

And we all wear the same faces at funerals.