Someone young died
I was walking to the calisthenics park to test out some new pull-up straps i bought. The park is next to the cemetary. There were a lot of people there. Lot's of cars not only on the parking lot of the cemetery but also on the parking spaces for the sport facilities. Lot's of middle aged people standing around, or walking to the graveyard.
Someone young died.
I don't know who, or how old the person actually was. But they were not very old.
When i was younger a had a part-time job as a coffin bearer. A school mate asked me if i was interested in making a few bucks. I agreed. We were the four dudes who carried the coffin to the open grave and then lowered it down. That's it, that was the job. There was usally some waiting for a speech to finish, then slowly walking to the grave, sometimes more waiting for another speech to finish, and then the lowering of the coffin. Then changing clothes and driving home again. Most of the time this did not take more than an hour all in all.
Some weeks we did this multiple times. So i attended a lot more funerals then the average person has to i reckon.
Most of them i forgot about, but there were two funerals that i still remember quite vividly.
There was this funeral of a young kid. There were so many people there. More than on any other funeral i ever attended before or after.
And then there was the funeral of this very old, very small woman. No one came to her funeral. Only one person. A neighbor. When we lifted the coffin i remember thinking: 'It is so light!'. It was as if there were no one in there at all.
I don't know what's sadder: A funeral with a lot of people, or a funeral with no one.
When i walked back home the sun was shining. It was warm. Early spring.
A beautiful day.