And the undertaker cried

After a funeral during Covid 19 lockdown, the local crem only allowing only 10 mourners and those to gather with distance outside the front of the crem.  The service with reduced time, happening there, and only then the deceased could be led into the crem chapel and the curtains closed.  This in an area where the dominant culture is to keep curtains open and for those leaving a funeral service to touch the coffin in a final farewell.

I had had to 'meet' with the family remotely over the phone, as had the funeral director - neither of us able to give the level of service to the family that we usually would although our best in the situation.   As the family left I commented to the funeral director how strange it was and limiting, and whilst my first lockdown funeral they had done so many, and the person who was so professional in front of the family turned to me with wet eyes.  This prompted the poem below, and whilst undertaker is now an old term, funeral director didn't have the same rhythm.

And the undertaker cried

I don't know you and I didn't know your loved one
You invite me in
Tell me their story
Entrusting me to hold that story
To hold the mirror
reflect their lives.

I couldn't reach out a hand
You couldn't sit in the chapel
We gathered outside in these strange times
And the undertaker cried.

Remembering over 90 years lived
The child, the young in love,
the wonderful parent
Memories shared
only hints of the fullness of life lived

I couldn't reach out a hand
You couldn't sit in the chapel
We gathered outside in these strange times
And the undertaker cried.

Emotions released
hearts aching
tears falling.
The final farewell
reduced, constrained,
in viral times.

I couldn't reach out a hand
You couldn't sit in the chapel
We gathered outside in these strange times
And the undertaker cried.

I don't know you and I didn't know your loved one
You invite me in
Tell me their story
Entrusting me to hold that story.
I did what I could but wish I could give my best,
sit with you, reach out to you,
You didn't see, as you turned to go,
The tear in my eye, and
how the undertaker also cried,

I couldn't reach out a hand
You couldn't sit in the chapel
We gathered outside in these strange times
And the undertaker cried.