Got through yesterday, a week after the long-awaited news arrived. Left a little ragged by it, but still walking.
It is notable to me how very different the approach is to death between Pakistan and the UK. Perhaps it’s a sign of increasing age and conservatism, but I strongly prefer the Pakistani way. A person dies and is buried within a day. There is a set procedure for the funeral, a limited set of obligations, and done. There is a constant stream of callers, in person and on the phone, but I did not find that as onerous as I had thought I would, maybe I sank back into my traditions as I would not have realised I would. I had a single day to get through and then the body was gone. No decisions to make other than whether to break convention and go to the graveyard for the burial – I decided not to, and whether to help wash the body – I did it, though largely because that was what my sister wanted.
While here it’s nothing but a stream of unpalatable decisions over the days between the death and the funeral, engulfing one in forms and paperwork and repellent tasks. To embalm or not to embalm, choose the menu for the reception, arrange a church and priest, write the funeral service, whether or not to have a eulogy, whether a funeral celebrates a death or a life, choose the readings and readers, choose a receptacle for the ashes, decide on flowers and who may give them and when, how to get to the church, who goes to the crematorium and how, the seating arrangements, the order of service, the music, the singer, the parking vouchers, the death certificates (two kinds), inform all the people who, being English, don’t talk to each other, write thank you letters, is there a visitation or viewing of the body, what it should be dressed in, and so on. It is very wearing.
The Comey firing is fascinating. A country built on laws, indeed. As hollow as any other expression of ideology. It’s hard not to welcome the Americans to the hamaam.