It's not many days when I've had to attend funeral services and then a burial. And today wasn't one of those days anyway. But when it has happened, I've always been struck how sharply my day is contrasting with everyone else's day. They're doing what I'd probably be doing, except I've got to take this time out to fulfill a presence. I have to be where I am because of the circumstances.
When I see headlights on a highway from a string of cars, or see funeral cars make their way through Manhattan, I'm reminded of how someone else's day is surely not like mine. They're going to a burial. I'm probably just going back to the office.
I listened to someone's story at work today that described an even different encounter with the departed than any of these.
They had reason to take some time to go to the Greek consulate in Manhattan at lunch to arrange for dual citizenship. They had an appointment, but it took them a little longer than they anticipated.
There weren't many staff members at the consulate, and they became tied up a bit by two hearses that pulled up, each with a pine box and a lawyer. (Much as this could be a joke about members of that profession, it isn't.)
It seems the lawyers presented notarized documents to the consulate staff that required at least one of them to come out to the hearses and affix a seal of some kind to the pine caskets with a blow torch and a template. The feeling was this was some kind of requirement necessary before the box and the body inside could be shipped back to Greece for burial. The boxes weren't opened, and no "inspection" seemed evident.
So, the person from work was a little further delayed getting back because they encountered a bureaucratic version of an "up drawbridge." It doesn't happen everyday, but if your're in the right place at the wrong time, you're going to be inconvenienced.
Death may not take a holiday, but it does take paperwork.
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