I attended A Stranger's Funeral and it was the most painful I'd been to: Loss, Love, and the story of those who linger on (a long post)

I know a lot about human death. It is the absence of life. A heart no longer beating, a breath no longer drawn. Lungs at rest, and the biological functions of a body no more.

_{Image by me, photomanipulation of West Terrace Cemetary, Adelaide, Australia.}

Death is the end, as far as we know. This isn't a post about religion. This isn't a post about philosophy. I spent my formative years writing a thesis about death, and its depictions in art.

This isn't a post about pretty pictures of beautiful women sleeping, pretending to be dead. It is a post about that which happens after-death - not to the person who has died, but to those who persist.

Recently, a woman who I had never met, died. This woman; in the grand scheme of things isn't a person of importance, notoriety or fame. She was the maternal grandmother of my partner. That's an important relationship; in the scheme of biology, ancestry, and all that sundry.

The woman wasn't local, residing in another state. An early morning flight in a steel tube to a foreign city transported me onward. This flight was immediately followed by another, and I didn't know what to expect.

Along the way, I read Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The book was the right size to fit into my back jeans pocket. This proved useful during moments of waiting, of which there were many.

A disembarked plane, a taxi ride through a tunnel; and an apartment complex. A buzzer. An elevator. A door. Another woman. The child of the dead grandmother. My partner's mother.

An embrace. An assertion of love. The narrow hallway of a dead woman's home. The lounge, filled with trinkets and items that mean so much, but, have no intrinsic value. As an onlooker, and unaffected by this death; I am offered a plate of food.

I ate. I embraced strangers who I'd never met. They're all family, in a way. I forgot names as eagerly as I learned them. Later, I put my belongings in a strange hotel room around the corner.

Death has a funny way of timing. This funeral was on Friday the 13th. We had arrived on the 12th. A short journey down the river, on a Thursday afternoon. I wandered through foreign streets, and witnessed many façades. People going about their days, while other people were dealing with death.

I was a passenger in my body in these moments, wandering around the city, following the short boat ride down the river (it was warm, welcoming, unlike the Styx) - on my way to eat dead fish from a Japanese place.

This meal was a celebration, for the anniversary of a birth for another. An amusing way for a trip to be "book-ended", and fitting, given the circumstances.

It provided sustenance and a celebration of life - something required; in particular for my partner.

Only after an enormous quantity of dead fish consumed, the bill paid, more farewells exchanged, and a lengthy evening walk with old friends, did we return to the dead woman's apartment.

More family had gathered. Keenly, we awaited the arrival of another - the son in law of the deceased; and the man who will one day be my father in law (If, perhaps, I prescribe to that marriage thing.)

More embraces. More reunions. More family.

Thursday night. The eve of a funeral. It wasn't an awkward atmosphere; but one that had a certain sort of anticipation in the air.

The anticipation of closure.

_{Image by aitoff, via PixaBay}

I had no trouble getting to sleep that evening. It was an exhausting day full of travel; conversation, and meeting new people.

The funeral wouldn't be until 2PM the following day. I filled my pockets with small packets of travel tissues. There would be people crying. There would be people weeping. I'd be there for anyone who needed it.

A quiet car ride to the venue; directed by a silent GPS in a comfortable Subaru, and more reunions. A sister. More new people. Many more new people. A tiny rose pinned to my shirt, like all the others.

A front row seat in a sun-bathed room filled with rows of seats. Rows of people, filled them, each and everyone in someway linked to this woman's death.

A plain, but modest wooden box. The dead woman, inside. The lid, closed. A well dressed man with a gentle face walks up to the lectern and speaks some words about who, why, and how this all came to be.

A celebration of life. Some music. The dead woman loved music. Some of her favourites played. Tears welled in eyes. An elderly man struggled up the stairs. He wore a pinstriped shirt, and wielded a solid looking walking stick. It was the dead woman's brother.

He remained stoic as he recounted memories of his childhood. He excelled in mischief, his sister did not. There was fierce competition in the household.

He shared a story of days more recently elapsed.

He had recently suffered a heart attack. On the telephone, he joked, with his now dead sister, that there was one race left to win between siblings. The race to the grave.

It was a race he was happy in which to come second. He broke down.

Myself, an only child; couldn't imagine what this man was feeling. I've experienced plenty of death in my family growing up. My grandmother when I was eight, my father when I was nineteen, and my grandfather when I was twenty one. My family were Greek Orthodox, but this was the first time I had ever attended a "western" funeral.

The act of having the family speak, say words; and weep openly on a pedestal to profess their loss is a hard thing to witness. When you hold an affection for that human being; and see them suffer at the whims of their emotions, it's even worse.

That's what got me. That's what got my partner weeping. That's what emptied my pockets of those tiny packets of travel tissues. That's what caused almost every other person to embrace every other person present.

That's what caused a thick mass of cigarette smoke outside the ceremony.

There were no borders. No lines to cross. Only comfort, altruism and sympathy. No one even used the word 'condolences'.

Another car ride later, and the debrief. A function at a local sporting club. Alcohol, canapés, and more stories about this woman's life. Photographs of the gathered individuals.

More introductions and conversation. A night that seemed to never end, and many more embraces among strangers. The more magical part - an introduction to an "uncle in law" - both of us - directly unaffected by this death; burly, large, and outwardly strong men; spoke of human love, and of not giving a single fuck what other people think.

So long as you're happy, and they're happy, who cares? Make the most of it.

It was the sort of conversation a father and a son should have growing up. The sort of conversation I never got to have in my early days. I lapped up his company and conversation selfishly. Yet, we were strangers. By the end of the evening, I offered my spare mattress and hospitality - should they ever need a bed in my corner of the world.

He accepted, and I look forward to that day.

The music, alcohol, laughter, tears, and mourning went well into the night, followed up with various embraces, goodbyes.

An affront to death, promises that people would see each other again.

A woman's life gone, but new relationships forged. An apartment full of belongings to sort through for those who stubbornly persist. A reminder of the fragility of life; and the importance of cherishing not just those near to you; but every other life.