We're All In This Together

When we were in Gyflio, we were walking around the Platia, the town center, and happened across a funeral. We saw what seemed to be a hearse parked out on the street, but we didn’t think anything of it until all of the people sitting in the cafes on the Platia or wandering around grew quiet and rose from their chairs. We followed their eyes and watched as a funeral party emerged from a nearby building, the funeral home I presume. Everyone in the party was wearing black and many were teary-eyed and holding on to each other for support. The coffin was loaded into the hearse, which was really nothing more than an old black station wagon with all but the front seats removed. The coffin rested in the middle and along the sides were electric candelabras. Flowers were piled atop the car. A professional drove the car, and the Greek Orthodox priest, dressed in full attire including hat and long beard, sat in the passenger seat. Everyone else walked behind the car as it crept forward. In front of the car, a band, dressed all in red and composed of people of all ages, walked and played a dirge.

The church was only a few buildings down from the funeral home, and when the party reached it, they all moved inside for the funeral mass. Flowers were piled in front of the entrance, and we could hear songs and the chanting of the ritual funeral service. The smell of incense drifted out and perfumed the entire town with its bittersweet odor. Following the service, the funeral party reorganized itself and made a slow trek along the sea to the cemetery. The band played its dirge, the mourners wept, and the entire town stood quietly and respectfully as one of their own exited the town and this life.

The rituals surrounding death interest me. Cemeteries and funeral services speak to the way in which people care for other people. While it certainly does not concern the dead, it is still heartbreaking to see an overgrown and forgotten gravesite. On the other hand, it is touching to see fresh flowers, a letter, or a small trinket atop a gravestone, especially gravestones which reveal that it has been many years since the person buried there passed away. I didn’t know the person whose funeral was being held in Gythio, but I felt connected to it, because I was in a town that felt connected to it. Not everyone in the town knew the person who had died, but they all stood quietly, paying their respects. It was a simple gesture. But it was a gesture full of meaning. The funeral was not for a person who would be considered important by worldly standards, but to family and friends, to the town, to the space of world to which he/she belonged, he/she was important. The dirges, the slow walk through the street, the public display of loss was appropriate. In Gythio, it was not true that when you cry, you cry alone. There the whole world mourns with you. There they have not forgotten how important one person is. There they have not forgotten how important empathy is.