The Body.

  This last October my wife's grandmother, Helen, passed. She was very old and was suffering from Alzheimer's, so, while it was sad it wasn't wholly unexpected. While my wife's immediate family aren't particularly religious Helen was devoutly Jewish.  In accordance to her wishes, Helen was buried according to that tradition.

  My family is/was Anglican. When my grandparents passed we all headed down to the church, sat through a service, and then had a little get together to remember them. No body, and other than memories there was no real presence of the deceased. Until Helen passed that had been my experience with death and how people engage with mourning.

  Helen was in extended care at Oak Bay Lodge. The day she passed Emily (my wife) met with her parents who were keeping Helen company there until the funeral home could come and pick her up. This practice of keeping the body company is part of the tradition. The deceased can't be alone until they are buried.

  I joined them once I had finished work.

  I got to Helens room knocked on the closed door and entered.  

  There she was. Thin, gaunt (a complexion hard to describe), mouth refusing to stay closed, relaxed and tense all at the same time. The room had a faint smell that I didn't notice until we left. Emily and her parents were listening to a tape of old answering machine messages, birthday wishes, and speeches from various functions someone had recorded for Helen. The room was not as oppressively somber as I thought it was going to be. 

  Helen was flown to Toronto to be buried next to her husband. 

  My first Jewish funeral. The service itself wasn't that much different than the Anglican ones I had already been to. Less pomp but very similar. I was pressed into service, willingly, as a pall-bearer, which was an honour. We all joined the procession to the graveyard where the last few rites were performed and Helen was lowered into the ground next to her husband.

  Then, every single person who attended the funeral helped to fill the grave. I found this hugely cathartic. Emily's dad and uncle did the majority of shovelling, but our nephew (who is 4) was enthusiastically "playing" along with his own tiny shovel. While he didn't have the emotional capability to understand what was happening, I believe he was aware of the part he was playing, and later in life will remember it as important.

  Much scotch was drunk that night. I didn't get to know Helen that well, by the time Emily and I got together she was already quite sick. The times we visited her though she greeted me with love and could tell I was important to Emily which meant I was important to her. Being involved in honouring Helen's life by taking part in her funeral made me feel closer to Emily and her family. Hearing other people talk about her life gave me an appreciation for a person who I didn't truly get to meet, but was very important to the person I love more than anything. I don't think I would have gained this perspective any other way than through being involved in her funeral. While her passing is sad and she will be missed, Helen managed to bring her family closer together.
  On the flight home, and a few times later that week, Emily and I talked about sitting with the body and how that helped her with her grief. The anthropologist part of my brain was constantly intrigued by the ceremony of the whole day and what many of the little behaviours and traditions meant, like leaving little stones on grave markers to say you had been there. I haven't learned all the answers to those questions yet.
  It was an oddly good day.