Saturday, April 11, 1998

Funeral processions get little respect

By Ken Garfield / Knight Ridder Newspapers

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- It could be worse.

Instead of flying by funeral processions like so many do, we could be like the guy who couldn't get past the limousine carrying the family of the deceased. So he made an obscene gesture at the driver and the bereaved loved ones in back.

"Perils of the job," said the victimized limo driver, Brian Clyburn of Long & Son Mortuary Service. "You're going to get your few idiots."

The reader who called me last week was right. A new book on religious etiquette -- how to act at a Muslim wedding or a Jewish funeral, for example -- should have given guidance on another issue:

What should we do when we drive up on a funeral procession?

Not flip it the bird, of course.

Not run into the hearse. That happened a few years back in Charlotte. The hearse that was wrecked was taking a 5-year-old drowning victim to his final resting place. Every time that child's family looks back to the funeral, they'll think about the jerk whose recklessness robbed them of a chance to find some comfort in remembering.

We're also not supposed to speed past the police car leading the procession. Ken Poe of Hankins & Whittington Funeral Service has experienced that lovely little move.

In a perfect world, Frank Pierpont of Harry and Bryant Co. suggests we slow down when a procession comes toward us. If you can't wait for the entire caravan, at least wait until the lead cars carrying the deceased and immediate family have passed by. If you come up on a procession from behind, slow down. Don't pass, at least until you can do so without intruding.

"To me," said Pierpont, "it's a symbolic act of respect for the person who has died. Just pause for a moment."

But it's not a perfect world. It's a rush-rush world. There are no laws requiring us to pause. And so enough of us speed past funeral processions to rob the sacred line of some of its quiet dignity.

Did I say quiet?

On the way to the cemetery, Pierpont said he's heard his share of music blaring from passing cars. You try mourning to heavy metal.

The day of funeral processions getting the respect they deserve may be over.

Some cities have quit providing police escorts for processions, deciding that it's too costly and officers are needed elsewhere. Charlotte City Council talked in 1991 about stopping funeral escorts, deciding instead to charge $20. Poe, of Hankins & Whittington, said he has never had a family object to paying the fee.

Police or no police, the Rev. Lewis Bledsoe of Steele Creek Presbyterian Church believes processions in Charlotte may be headed for extinction. The city's growing at a dizzying pace. The roads are filling up with newcomers, many of whom are unaccustomed to heeding funerals.

One day, mourners might leave the church saying, "Meet you at 4 at the cemetery."

I hope he's wrong.

I hope our city -- any city -- isn't growing so fast that we refuse to ease up on the accelerator long enough to let a procession pass.

It takes four or five minutes to let a line of funeral-goers go by in peace. Do you really have anything better to do than honor the dead and respect the living?

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(Ken Garfield is the religion editor at The Charlotte Observer. Write to him at: The Charlotte Observer, 600 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC 28232.)

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(c) 1998, The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, N.C.).

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