Honorary Pallbearer for a Stranger

I'll spare you the specifics, but I attended a funeral today. (Don't feel obliged, dear reader, to send me any condolences; I wasn't close with her. In fact, I barely knew her at all.)

You might consider me an extended member of the family for whom I was attending the funeral. They lost an elderly loved one (whom I had met), so I jammed myself into a dress shirt I hadn't worn for a long time and tried to remember how to tie a Half Windsor on the way to a stranger's house to gather with the family before the ceremony.

A man in the shadows, I tell myself as I pull into the drive, preparing for a few hours of hanging in the back, smiling at strangers and shaking hands with warm country people who live in warm country homes, just like this one.

The house has a large inviting circle drive and a sun room overlooking a wintry pasture and a distant green pond. There are ten or twelve cars parked outside. I can hear the murmur of conversation coming from inside, and the scent of homemade bread hangs in the air.

I shake a few hands as I enter, a familiar face here and there, lots of respectful smiles and acknowledging nods. There are some uncomfortably silent teenagers on a couch nearby. A circle of elderly people laugh together quietly--quiet except for one; a big old man with a heavy complexion and knuckles thick with the marks of honest work. He laughs the way I imagine a st. Bernard might. He looks around, probably making sure he isn't getting any sour looks for laughing at a funeral. He's a good man; you can tell just by looking at him.

I talk with the people I know, and they thank me for coming and hug me. They know I'm just trying to do the right thing by being there. They know I was Nobody to the deceased. They smile with sad eyes; tired but grateful.

A middle-aged woman from the family, with whom I had spoken on a handful of occasions, approaches me with a camcorder. She smiles and asks me how I am, and thanks for coming, and I hope you can find something to eat with all this food around here, and so on.

Then: "Can you run the camcorder?" She refers to it with a the in front of it; probably the same way she refers to video games or other devices she hasn't grown comfortable with. He's in there, playing the video game; as if there is only one to go around for the whole community, like a cotton gin.

Who films a funeral? I can't get this thought out of my head as I graciously accept the videotaping responsibilities for the room full of strange faces around me. At least people will shy away from me now. Who wants to be on a funeral video?

Some women look at a clock and remind some men to head to the church early, since the that's what pallbearers do. Men trickle out the door, leaving Styrofoam cups full of Coke-stained ice cubes on the kitchen counters.

"Jed, you need to go with them," one of the women says from across the room. "The pallbearers are supposed to go early." The room is quiet.

"Oh, I'm not, um..."

"The honorary pallbearers are supposed to go now too," she says.

Honorary pallbearer? How did I get on the list of honorary pallbearers? And why? Did they think I would feel left out? No one even knew I was coming.

I fumble with the camcorder as I head for the door. A man in the shadows, I think. Just a man in the shadows.