When the death knell rang in my village church, my grandmother, anxious, urgent, avid, and also frightened, would tell my siblings and me: "Children, children, run! Go see who has died!" In her eyes, there was an expression of triumph. It was someone, it was another, it wasn't her. When we returned with the mournful news, she would lament with as much sincerity as cliché. "Oh, poor thing, imagine, just think, so young, only seventy years old..." Because youth is the most relative thing in the world. In fact, I embraced this profession I have because you are considered a "young writer" until after forty (for the same reason, I wouldn't have become a footballer). When I saw her cry and moan, I understood very well the idea of Egyptian mourners. Seeing someone cry is contagious and comforting. Every year, my grandmother was charged a receipt for the right to a niche. Right to a niche. What an alliteration. The phrase she used was: "They've already collected for the dead."
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I tell you about this because for a year now, death has been more present than ever. Every day in the news, they give us a number. The other day I was talking to the owner of a funeral home that operates in the city. He explained to me ---because I believed the opposite--- that with the pandemic, they don't have more income, because everyone spends the minimum on the coffin, flowers, and funeral service. Since no one has to see it, it's not necessary. The dead have gone completely alone. And that's why it's not necessary to fill any wake with overly large wreaths, nor to spend on oak wood with golden rings.
If I had to talk about myself ---who doesn't pay "for the dead"--- I wouldn't want the collection for the coffin to be too generous. And instead, I would find it amusing if everyone could eat and drink, right there, as they do at funerals in India. "The dead to the hole and the living to the bun." I understand that it means that the one who stays, despite the sorrow, doesn't take a minute to start eating. Wine for everyone and truffles (I'll make sure to die in season). I want all the flowers in life, right now. Bouquets, posies, potted plants. There's nothing I like more than florists, now full of poinsettias. Don't delay, don't delay at all in buying flowers and giving them away or keeping them, as I do, for "personal consumption."