Today I went to the funeral ceramony and burial of a student I taught.
He was only 19, and it was very moving. He had been shot in a road rage attack. He was waiting for his Baccalaureat results
First of all, I made my way to the Great Mosque in Nantes, as this was a Muslim ceramony.
A lot of youngsters, classmates and friends were there, with their parents, members of staff from the lycee, family and gatherers.
The ceramony itself was very quick, no songs, the Imam read his verses, prayers and suddenly it was over. Then the coffin was taken to the cemetary, where it was immediately buried. His father said some words, thanked us. His mother was devastated.
His sister, his brothers, all wept.
The funeral attendent told us that his body had been bathed and then wrapped in white linen, according to the rites of Islam, and that he would be buried and if we wanted we could say goodbye and even throw soil onto the coffin, burying him. Many people did so, i stood back and watched his friends and family do their burial. When you see the soil going onto the coffin, you know that death has done its work.
The funeral attendant thanked us all, encouraged us to come and visit the grave, to think of the decesed, plant some flow he explained that in Muslamic tradition, death is preordaned by God, so its hard, but its life. We will all go to the earth one day, he told us, but that it was especially cruel today.
May he rest in peace.
Its not the first funeral I've attended, nor the first for a young person. As I placed my hands on his father's soldiers and said meaningless words which he thanked me for, I could just think of the smile of the deceased.
I slipped away, back to the living. Many many people had come. The Mosque was full, and the graveyard too.
I staggered down the pathway , towards the cemetary gates, and I wept, thinking of the waste of it all. Today wasn't about me, however. Today wasn't about me.