At this point, I've worked enough funerals to know that if a speaker pulls a typewritten speech from his suit pocket, I'm probably not going to cry. I knew I was in trouble when the son began speaking without notes.
Several things about today's funeral were oddly out of balance. The deceased had lived a full, very long life and there were probably fifty people at the service. (That is a larger-than-average crowd for an elderly person’s funeral.) There were 15 flower arrangement “tributes” displayed vertically, on tripod wire stands, near the casket. And there were another dozen large flower arrangements in containers on the floor. And there was an enormous casket spray, the flower arrangement placed on top of the coffin. Friends and family had sent more flowers than I had ever seen at a funeral.
The guests were mostly (perhaps all) family, from what I could observe. One by one, each came forward to view the deceased. Each mourner bowed, usually three times but sometimes more, with hands held tightly together at their chest. The mourners patiently viewed the deceased and some spoke to him or touched him. He was embalmed and in repose; he looked relaxed. (That is the goal of the embalmer and the restorative artist.) He was holding in his right hand a Samsung phone; under his left forearm he held a large Samsung tablet. He was taking the internet with him!
There was no formal officiant. After the guests had bowed and paid respects and returned to their seats, there was a period of quiet. And then, also quietly, the eldest son, who was already standing with his siblings and their spouses near his father in the open casket, took a few steps to the center and, quietly, began speaking in Chinese. (I assume Mandarin, but I don't know for sure.) I understood nothing.
Oftentimes, when you listen to someone speak in a language that shares some ancestry with English, you can pick out a word or two along the way, and sometimes it feels for a fleeting moment like you understand what the speaker is saying. Not in this case.
But I understood. It wasn't the words the eldest son was speaking; it was the silences between the words. And the involuntary sighs, and heaves. And pauses. And the quiet.
Empathy drew me into this journey of becoming a funeral director, for better or for worse. As a funeral director, it would be disrespectful to look at my phone when managing a service. Without the phone, it is an invitation to be present. So I was there, standing a few steps from the son, and from his father. I was standing as an outsider permitted into this sacred space and moment, and I was crying. Because of the pauses.