Last week we went to the wrong funeral.
Our national staff began arriving at the office friday morning, sharing the news about a Christian woman who had just died in a moto accident, "the woman who sold things in front of your old house", they explained. My heart ached. This was such a sweet woman, a Christian, but whose husband wouldn't allow her to go to church.
In Cambodia a loudspeaker announces deaths shorly after someone passes away, day or night. And a funeral is held almost immediately. So an hour after receiving this bitter news we changed into white shirts and dark pants and went over to join the mourners.
The room was filled with members of our church, holding hands and weeping with the woman's daughters. But wait a minute, was that her daughter?? If it was, we'd never met her. And where was our woman-who-sold-things-in-front-of-our-house's daughter that we knew and often visited with? Someone lifted the light sheet covering the woman's body and I barely glimpsed her face. A face I didn't really recognize, although I suppose...
People whispered about the family as we waited for the songs and prayers to begin. We asked a few questions to the friends around us and by that point were about 90% sure that we did not, in fact, know this woman. Even though she was our old neighbor, and even though she attended our church.
As we left the wooden house, the elders at our church thanked us so much for coming. Our presence was appreciated, even expected as members of the church. When someone is in pain, you are all in pain. You mourn together.
We stepped out of the front gate, and our dear woman-who-sold-things-in-front-of-our-old-house was smiling and waving at us from across the street. Yep, this was the wrong funeral. And yet the right one to be at as members of this community. A reminder that in Cambodia a funeral isn't some personal, private thing for those you know best, but rather a gathering of an entire community no matter how well you recognize the face beneath the white sheet.
Oh, and the "woman who sold things in front of your old house" was actually "the woman whose house is in front of the woman who sold things." Oops.
