What to Bring to a Funeral

Bring nothing. Bring your body and your coat and a tissue you will find too late, in the wrong pocket, already used. Bring the thing you always meant to say and didn't. Understand that the saying of it now, to a room that cannot hear, still counts. Bring an anecdote. Make it specific. Not "he was a great man"— everyone will say that. Say: he once argued with a seagull for twenty minutes over a chip and considered it a draw. Say: she kept every birthday card in a shoebox labeled "evidence that I was loved." Bring your appetite. The sandwiches at funerals are made by people who could not fix the death and so they fixed a plate. Eat them. This is communion. Bring your grief and set it on the table next to everyone else's grief. You'll be surprised how much it looks the same— and how, for one afternoon, the sameness is a kind of grace.