Costanza and I stopped at Starbucks on the way to the funeral, since neither of us really knew what we were in for. The first part was held in a mosque in a converted church gym (or so it looked) in Patterson. There were seperate entrances for men and women, but both led to the same big room, with a divider down the middle. There was a tape of a muzzein playing, and men seated on floor all around the perimeter. I knew no one, since Eb and all his brothers were downstairs washing the body, and Costanza, his mother, his sister and sisters-in-law were all on the other side of the divider.
\n
\nSome of Karim’s friends came in and sat down next to me, and we started talking, none of us really sure what we were supposed to do. On the women’s side we could hear one woman leading what we supposed were prayers. Finally the imam came in (and looked like what I would imagine Alec Guiness would be if he were a Shi’ite ayatollah) and started the prayers. Those of us who weren’t Muslim just kinda hung around the periphery, not sure of what to do.<\/p>\n
As the prayers went on, with still no sign of any of Eb’s family, one of Karim’s friends went outside. Then they all went, and as it seemd that this was just the regular prayer service, I went out, too. About 10 minutes later they brought the casket out of the basement and up into the main hall, and we all filed back in, and the woman joined us. I saw Louis (whom I hadn’t recognized earlier) and his wife Marie, and stood with them. There were more prayers (all in Farsi), then the casket was loaded intp the hearse and we went to the cemetary.<\/p>\n
There is an Iranian section of the cemetary, way up on a hillside…very picturesque. There were both Christian and Muslim graves there (I didn’t see any Zoroastrian ones). One of the Christian ones stood out: it had three walls, with crosses that were cut out of the walls partly and curved down to make a kind of dome, and images of scales all around (I guess the guy was a lawyer). The graveside service was about the same as a Christian service. It was very emotional, especially with each of the siblings at the end tossing in a shovelful of dirt.<\/p>\n
We then went to the mosque that Dr. Keshavarz helped found. It, too, was in an old converted church. First there was a mini reception downstairs in what was the fellowship hall but was now the prayer hall, so we all took off our shoes and went to the refreshment line for our respective sex. About an hour later we put our shoes back on and went upstairs into the former sanctuary, where there was a 2-hour long memorial service, almost entirely in Farsi. One woman recited some poetry by Saadi, a twelth-century Persian poet, and translated a bit of it into English…it was very nice.<\/p>\n
After this we all went back downstairs and had a tremendous amount of food. Later we went back to Eb’s folks house, and Eb, Costanza and I played scopa for a while. I gave my condolences again around 10 and went with Costanza back to her place. She gave me a ride to the airport early the next morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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