The day was a hot one. The air didn't exactly stand still,
but it didn't move around too much, either. In the long line
of people moving slowly and silently, many water bottles
could be seen, and some people were putting sunscreen on as
they walked. On and on they went, following the ambulance
and the black car. Once in a while, a rare word or sentence
broke the almost total silence, and even those were low,
slightly guilty whispers and murmurs.
There was a good turnout; he had been well loved by many.
Almost a thousand people now gathered in the small town's
cemetery. The cemetery was as small as could be expected in
such a place, which gained the phrase small town only for
lack of a better term. What would you call it? A tiny town?

People now stood in a rough circle, around the Rabbi and
the small stage that was used for funerals. Some of them
were standing on the edges of old graves, some on the brown
ground that seemed to wait for someone to fill it. Most
chose to place themselves on the path between the old and
future graves; it may be more uncomfortable for the body,
but it's much more comfortable for the mind.
The speakers crackled a little, a sign that it was getting
started. The first words said were- as was common in this
day and age- "Please turn off all cellphones". An obvious,
necessary request that was nonetheless strange in this
particular situation.
The Rabbi began with a short sequence from the Bible, which
most of the present didn't really understand (or try to).
After all, the family was not a religious one, and so
weren't most of their friends. The decision to even bring a
Rabbi had been reached only the night before. Then he asked
the first eulogist, a man who had worked with the deceased,
to come and speak.
His eulogy was short and to the point, not quite emotional
(although you can't be totally unemotional when saying a
eulogy), well written and well said. The crowd was as silent
as a thousand people can be, but small movements could be
seen everywhere: a shuffle of the feet; a hand going to the
mouth, where the teeth started working on the nails; a
scratch in the arm, the ear or the chin. Almost all of the
eyes were down, either staring intently at some meaningless
stone, or looking at nothing at all. Air was breathed in and
out in a heavy and deep manner.
The first eulogist finished. What he said was barely more
than just pointing out some of the deceased more important
work, but that's exactly what the family had wanted him to
say, since his work had been a very important part of his
life.
The Rabbi read another sequence, this one a well known one
even for this mostly secular crowd. A few tears started
falling during the Rabbi's reading, since the words were
quite beautiful, and he read them well. And besides, there
was the general feeling of sorrow and sadness, which would
claim at least a tear or two of every person there, even the
ones that didn't know the deceased. The Rabbi finished and
called the second eulogist, a friend of the family.
Her eulogy was not about him but about the family, a normal,
loving family for which everything would change from this
moment on. She talked about the unfairness of it all, about
the big love there was in the family, about the little girl-
only 6 years old- that would grow up without a father. She
started crying in the middle of it, and her husband came to
console her until she could finish what she had to say. The
deceased's wife looked in a kind of sad jealousy as her
friend's husband, who was still here, still alive, still
with her, took her back down from the stage.
During her eulogy, many more eyes had become wet, and the
ones that had tried to look up before felt obligated to go
down and join the majority of eyes there. Some of the
present stood dry-eyed, either trying to hide their feelings
or trying to hide the fact that they didn't feel anything,
from the others and from themselves.
As is always the case in funerals, most people  didn't know
what to think or what to do. A young man, a friend of the
son that hadn't even known the father, found himself
sneaking glances at the girl standing next to him, which was
quite beautiful, and feeling very guilty for it. Behind him
stood another of the son's friends, wondering if he should
say hello to the first friend, which he knew- although not
well- or just keep standing quietly behind him. A little to
the right of them stood a woman that was worried that
someone might notice that her blouse was wet with sweat, and
kept scalding herself because that wasn't something you
should worry about in a funeral.
All around the place, people were thinking regular
thoughts, as they did everyday, and yet felt guilty for
thinking them while at a funeral. After all, you weren't
supposed to think of all those things in such an occasion,
were you? The truth was that most of the people there asked
themselves that question without knowing that others were
asking themselves exactly the same thing, and the reason was
a simple one: we can't control our thoughts, not entirely at
least. Sometimes they just wander away from us to places we
don't want them to go to.
Many selves were also asked if maybe they weren't sad
enough, and to that question there isn't one true answer. A
funeral is an occasion that makes thoughts and questions
like that to surface from their mostly unseen homes in the
bottom of the subconscious.
Then, suddenly, disrupting all the thoughts and
self-analysis, all the guilt and sorrow, all the boredom and
tiredness, a cellphone rang. Everybody heard it. Some
ignored it, the eulogist of course kept speaking although it
did annoy her. Only some of the present turned their heads
to look at the one guilty of this modern crime. The phone
rang once, twice, three, four and five times. It was the
cellular adaptation to "For Elise" by Mozart, no less. And
then the real atrocity was done. The phone stopped ringing,
but instead of silence, everyone heard a "Hello". Many
"imagine the nerve" and "I can't believe it" whispers were
heard, many accusing eyes met the perpetrator's eyes. He
took the hint, although very, very late, ended the
conversation and turned the phone off. Relative peace had
been restored to the funeral.
The eulogist had stopped speaking by then, and the Rabbi
had even read the first half of a psalm, but the majority of
the mourners didn't hear neither the end of the eulogy nor
the beginning of the psalm. Anyway, it didn't matter too
much, thought more than one, what can they say that is new?
All funerals are fundamentally the same.
After the Rabbi ended his half-heard psalm, the deceased's
children came up to speak. They said unplanned eulogies,
which were not well written like the first one or carefully
thought of like the second one, and therefore were much
better. Real, raw feelings were exposed. These were not
speeches or eulogies, these were two teenagers saying their
goodbyes from their father. The girl started crying in the
midst of what she was saying, and, as opposed to the friend
of the family, did not feel any obligation to finish and
just went back into her mother's arms.
There were no dry eyes in the cemetery at that moment.
The son caught the eye of a friend of his for a second, but
the friend couldn't bear the sadness in those eyes and just
turned around. By the time he realized that that shifting of
his gaze would hurt his friend even more and turned back,
the son was looking elsewhere, wondering how something like
this could have happened, and why it had happened to him.
Even though this days every day there's a funeral like
these, where there is, more often than not, a relative who
hasn't yet connected the pictures and names in the news with
actual flesh and blood human beings asks himself that
question. The answer was a simple one: death is mostly
random, unpredictable, and non-discriminating. Especially
when death comes as a result of a terrorist act.
Then the time came to bury him. The whole crowd was asked
to move some ten meters to the direction of the would-be
grave. A simple task turned hard by the fact that a thousand
people had to do it together. But after a minute or so (and
without pushing and stuff like that which you would expect
to see in other places where there's a large crowd), they
were gathered around what was yet a little closer to
becoming a last resting place for someone. About half the
group were not in a position where they could see what was
happening, but they heard the sounds of the shovels scraping
the ground and of the earth hitting the casket. Somehow,
those sounds were horrible for those who couldn't see what
was happening- although they knew well enough. For some, it
was worse than everything else that had happened that day.
After the actual burial was over, everybody dispersed, and
the place became much less crowded. One by one, people went
to the members of the family and hugged them, said a few
words of condolence, tried to give comfort in the best way
they could. After a while the son and daughter became a
little impatient at the quantity of people coming to them,
some of them barely known to them before this day. How long
can you stand in one place and simply hug people? But of
course they just kept doing it.
And then it was over. The long line was built once more.
People went towards their cars and the buses that had
brought them there. Towards another day, a new day in which
life would go on, either because it had to or just because
that's the way things are.
Just a regular funeral.