Under the pearl-hued sky of Paris, as a welcome spring breeze ruffled the trees above, I walked with a friend through Montparnasse Cemetery to pay our respects to a long-dead artist we both admire. As we wove our way through the marble headstones, we passed a group of people convening around a grave. At first, I assumed that they, like us, had come to visit a long-buried hero or celebrity. Perhaps it was a highly cultured tour group, I thought, noting that the crowd was outfitted in brightly colored shirts and pale jeans. But as we passed by, I suddenly spotted the hearse parked around the corner. I paused, briefly—there was one, no, two men in black suits, heads bowed. The rest, though casually dressed, were similarly postured, all standing around an opening in the soft earth. This was a graveyard and we had run into a funeral.
Wearing Sorrow
