As is tradition, the family had kept vigil with the deceased during the night, in preparation for the church service, and then burial the following day. Several men were carrying the elderly deceased woman in her coffin, and two men at the very end of the procession were carrying the lid.
She was entirely covered by clothing or scarves, except her eyes, and I saw one of her hands resting gently on her chest. I stared at her curled fingers, I stared at her face. I stood uncertainly at the top of the stairs, looking out the window at her and at the familiar villagers.
Her closed eyes gave me no clue to who she was in life, but the wailing mourners did. It was the first time in my life that I had ever seen a person so close, who was dead. I know that these kinds of processions happen all the time, generally between noon and 2 p.m. as is customary. I just had never seen one. But judging from the amount of notices that also are customarily put up on tree trunks and posts around the villages each time someone dies, I should have seen more than one in my four months here already.
As the procession walked by the building, making its way up to the church around the corner, I walked downstairs and outside. I noticed than that the procession had stopped right there at the corner and people were singing. People standing around up on the sidewalk near me, who were not a part of the procession were still, not walking or doing anything.
I really needed to use the bathroom, but I hesitated, feeling it would be inappropriate for me to walk past them up the steps to the library, when obviously it was a moment to be still. Within seconds they continued, still singing, up towards the church, but I stood still a moment longer, reflecting.
Here it is impossible not to look death in the face. I was just minding my own business and happened upon an open-coffin funeral procession, right in the center of town! I realized, why would this offend me? If I were at home, this might give me pause. But here, learning every day customs and traditions unfamiliar to me, I find myself growing more tolerant of ways different than my own. Certainly people should mourn and grieve how they feel is best.
Death is real, as real as life, and I am not afraid of how I feel about that, which is scared, curious, hopeful. Every funeral I have ever been to, people sat what would be here probably regarded as coldly removed from the body of their loved one. Maybe their pain made them distant from their own grief as well, or maybe a culture involving sterility and silence did that.