A Filipino funeral

It was already 11:00 a.m. when I got back to my dorm. Since my uncle had told me that they would be leaving at 9 a.m. that morning I had declined to go with them. However, 2 hours after their expected departure time I decided to give him a call just in case there was a remote possibility that he would still be here.

Remote? Ha, I keep on forgetting people here run on Filipino Time. When I called them they weren't even remotely close to leaving though he told me they were just about to go. We left at 12:00 p.m. for the funeral of my Uncle Bert.

Now before I start to talk of the first funeral I have ever attended here in the Philippines I should backtrack about 6 days ago when I went to the house of my late Uncle Bert.

It had already been 3 days after his death and we were going to his family's home to pay respects to his remaining family. When we got to their street there were two tents blocking off and quite a few people standing outside. At such a late time I really didn't expect so many people to be there. It kind of looked like a party scene than the house of a grieving family. When I finally walked in to the house I was in for another surprise. There he was, my late Uncle Bert.

Now, it wasn't like that movie Weekend at Bernie's or anything. He was just there in the living room lying in his coffin. As you may have guessed they don't usually do this in the States. Well, not were I'm from. Come to think of it I don't think they would allow that at all in the States. It could get mighty hot in some places and having a dead body sitting in your living room is not going to smell so good after awhile, unless you have a lot of saran wrap. I guess that's why the casket had a sealed glass top.

I know he's family but waking up in the middle of night to get a glass of water and then having to pass by a casket has to be a little creepy. I would imagine it makes the grieving processes even all that much harder but that's how they do it here. The body of my Uncle Bert would stay with them for 9 days before the date of the burial, which takes to me back to present time of my story.

When we arrived there were even more relatives this time around and a marching band complete with majorettes. At first I thought they were apart of a separate activity but when they pulled my uncle's casket from the house and loaded it up in to the hearse. They began playing and leading the way for the funeral procession. As for my relatives instead of getting in their cars to follow after the hearse (that's what we do in the States) they followed right along walking behind them. They all have cars here too but that's just how they do it here.

Now, I knew that the cemetery wasn't exactly very far from their place but I was wondering what if they had a longer way to go? It was a hot day and not everyone walking was exactly young and vigor. Another thing I was wondering was if they could be allowed to do this in the more crowed city streets? I would imagine as we took up the entire street we could cause a major traffic problem. In the States usually the funeral procession is required to follow the laws of the road though in most of the ones I have been in I can't say that has always happened. However, walking behind the hearse is definitely out of the question.

As we got to our first stop, the church. I had noticed that we didn't exactly take the quickest route here. We kind of took the long way around. I guess it was in order to give my uncle his last stroll around the block which seems like a nice symbolic gesture to me. When I die I want my family to take me around San Francisco, Vallejo and Lake Tahoe since that's were I mostly grew up. Better hope I don't die out here because I don't know how the hell you are gonna walk my body back to the States. Anyway, after saying a few good things about the life of Uncle Bert we left for the last leg of the trip.

When got to the cemetery we viewed him once again for the last time, the preacher said his last words and we closed the casket. However, before we buried him they passed the small children one at a time over the top of the casket. I'm not sure what this was for but in Creole tradition they do this in order to prevent the souls of the dead to come back for the children. I don't know if this is done here for the same reasons or not.

Now I don't know if I should exactly say that we "buried" him because the cemeteries here are not exactly like the ones in the States. No one here is really laying six feet under. Instead the caskets are placed in to sarcophaguses that lay above ground. Normally in the States we would watch people cover the casket with dirt but instead here we watched them seal my uncle's casket away in cement.

After the funeral ceremony we proceeded to my uncle's house for the party.

Farewell Uncle Bert, rest in peace.