A Very Plain Box

[Reflections]

It was a large place with many stones and it never looked good. It looked worse in the dark. The stones were large and there were many smaller stones piled on top of them and when you looked at them you wondered how they managed to stay there and you could imagine little rivulets streaming among the little stones when it rained. It was raining. It came in sheets and the ground was soft and everything was damp and ugly. He came as well. Of course he was here. He was to be the star of the show and he traveled with a very plain car, in a very plain box that was covered with an overused satin cloth which had slipped off along the way and I could see the pine planks that held together whatever the cancer and medicines had left of my friend.

They took him out of the car and put him on the special cart they use to haul these people. I wondered if this was done out of ritual or if they did so because dead people are very heavy, as the Gemara states, and perhaps for babies they did not use the metal cart with six wheels. So they put him on the cart and started moving up a slight incline to the large stones. They would stop every so often and say part of a prayer and then move along for a short distance and stop and repeat the prayer, adding a few lines each time. I walked alongside silently, touching the wooden box and imagining his sweet face all crunched up but happy that it was all over.

I remembered visiting him at home a few weeks earlier. He had difficulty sleeping because the cancer was everywhere and it itched terribly. I massaged his swollen feet and helped him climb into a hot bathtub to make him sleepy but it didn’t help. We were up all night. And when we saw the sun rise and it was time for another visit to the hospital, I looked into his eyes and he saw the look on my face and told me that he still believed, that he had to keep the faith and that I shouldn’t have such thoughts.

I remembered his swollen feet and disk-like chest and his bony face and I wanted to caress the box but they were moving quickly now because the rain was coming hard and fast so I ran along and remembered.

I remembered us in summer camp when it rained very hard and we raced each other in the rain and everything was wet and we laughed until our lungs hurt but it was lovely and everyone was happy. The times were good then when he would smile and tease me and we would walk in the woods behind the camp amongst the trees that shaded us from the sun and from the camp and we would sit on rocks and talk about important things and play with fallen leaves.

And so they scurried along and stopped and prayed and ran some more and prayed some more until they reached a hole in the ground that was muddy at the bottom with piles of earth beside. It was raining and there was lightning with thunder and someone whispered that the heavens were crying. I shrugged and tears wet my eyes.

There were more prayers now. The men were crying, asking for forgiveness from my dead friend. They lowered the box and a man removed the planks from underneath him and I could see the mud staining his white sheets.

They had finished all the prayers and were using shovels to cover the box that held his abused body. Rain falling, maggots crawling and shovels drawling and I knew he was smirking because he could be very cynical at times and this was just the right time.

Someone handed me a shovel. I looked at the shovel and box and dirt and hole and heaved a load of it and heard the rocks clang off the box. I put the shovel down. The box was already covered and a backhoe was pushing the rest of the earth into the grave and the people stood staring. I looked around at the large and small stones and walked away in the rain.