This Is The Most Public of My Many Humiliations

Monday, October 31, 2005

On Saturday, I went to my friends' funeral. It was a Muslim funeral, and well... I had never been to one before, and totally did not know what to expect.
It was beautiful. Different, but beautiful all the same.
Masta and I walked in, and were immediately asked to remove our shoes. We did so, and were led further into the Mosque. We were led to our seats, and were informed in brief, what a Muslim funeral intails.
We sat, as everyone prayed. I believe a rough translation of the prayer was: "praise Allah, take our brother into your land, and pray for the living" This was repeated and sung for about an hour, until they brought the bodies out.
Then everyone was asked to pay their respects to the dead. We sat and awaited our turn. There were probably about 1000 people there. They all slowly got up and walked by both the caskets. This was by far, the hardest part for me. I never expected to see my two friends like this. They did not look natural, and were wrapped in a ceremonial cloth.
After we paid our respects, we were led into another room. Where more prayers were said. Im not sure of the translation. We were standing, and the prayers continued, a guy next to Masta and I fainted, I felt so bad for the guy. After 10 more minutes of prayers the ushers/volunteers asked us to face each other, so we made rows of people facing one another, with about a 3 foot space between us.
This was when the coffins were brought into the room. And passed between the rows, so that everyone's hand helped carry the casket. I think this part was especially hard on masta. Since he had never been to an open casket funeral, he was already messed up from seeing the bodies. We both stayed strong, as the caskets passed through our hands. I said my personal prayers, and goodbyes to my friends at this point, and felt a release. I felt at peace. As the caskets were passed the prayers that were just a few words, were repetitively sung. I found this very soothing, and almost hypnotic.
I did not goto the burial, because I thought it was for the immediate family only.
It was good closure, for both masta and I. We talked about how we felt, and how interesting it was to have such a part in our friends funeral.

killed softly at 10/31/2005 09:28:00 AM

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