Just one more week of this term. Next Tuesday to Thursday I take finals, and then I have a week and a half of no school.
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Funeral
Part 5: Crematorium

After a fitful 4 hours of non-sleep at the bathhouse, DBW, CW and I got back to the hospital, where about a dozen men sleeping, shoes off, on the floor of the eating room. People were packing things up so that we could head over to the crematorium. My other cousin's wife (CW2) tied up a box containing a jade vase with a black ribbon. She asked me to help her gather a bouquet of flowers from the 8-foot-tall flower arrangements, to place on the grave later that day. She picked lilies, I picked roses. My uncle's brother, wearing white gloves, carried the framed picture of my uncle, surrounded by white chrysanthemums.

There was a bus chartered to take people to the crematorium, but I rode in my dad's car. I took both bouquets of flowers with me, wrapped in newspaper.

The crematorium had an oddly collegiate air, with grassy outside areas and a cafeteria in addition to the cool marble interior of the ceremony rooms and waiting areas. We were ushered pretty quickly into the Buddhist room, along with the plain wooden coffin. The next two rooms were ecumenical, and the furthest room from us sported a cross. The mourners inside that room sang hymns; chants and bells rang inside ours.

After the monk was done chanting, the coffin was taken into one of the non-affiliated rooms, where my aunt and the monk and a few other people sat for some time. Perhaps a chance to say goodbye? The rest of the group milled around the common space outside, along with mourners from several other funerals.

CW, DBW, Gyu-hyun and I went to the other side of the building, where there were rows of orange-colored seats next to the glass walls. It felt like the airport. On the other side of the seats, a gently sloping ramp led past small windows set into thick walls of stone. Each window lined up with a set of what looked like steel elevator doors. I realized that the doors each led into a room where the dead would be burned.

We waited. Gyu-hyun and I played a few games of Thumb War, but I was too tired to get much into it, so I chased him away by pretending to pick my nose and eat the pickings.

More waiting.

And waiting.

And then, all at once, three groups of mourners moved up the ramp and took their places before their respective elevator doors. The picture of my uncle was placed on the deep sill of the little window, as was the wooden box containing the jade jar. My aunt, the monk, and my aunt's friends began to chant. Keening filled the air, not so much from our group, but from another set of mourners at another window.

The coffin was rolled into the area on the other side of the little window and the thick stone wall. A crematorium employee wearing white gloves took off the covering to the coffin and stuffed it into one of the ropes encircling it.

The keening continued. I stayed behind the little group in front of the window, feeling like an intruder of sorts on this grief. I saw my older cousin Hee-jye (Gyu-hyun's father) wipe his eyes. He noticed me standing there and told me I should go eat in the cafeteria downstairs, as the cremation would take two hours.

I stood in back of the little group for a little while longer, and eventually wandered outside into the sunlight. CW2 and her son were nearby, and Yong-jye came by to tell all of us to come eat. As we walked to the cafeteria together, Yong-jye said in English, obviously unnerved, "Those doors, they were -- terrible." His wife, with whom I'd picked out the bouquet of flowers for the grave, said, "It was like, what is it? Auschwitz?" I nodded.

After a quick lunch, sitting with Yong-jye, his wife, their son, his wife's father and brother, and my oldest uncle, I went outside and slowly strolled around. I noticed a faint rhythmic whump noise and, looking at the building, noticed metal chimney-like structures rising out of the roof. They corresponded to the location of each set of steel elevator-like doors.

I took out my phone, hoping that someone had called. I walked some more, brooding on various personal melodramas, then went back to the cafeteria and asked my dad for the car keys, thinking I might take a nap. While I was in the car, my phone rang. It was John. We talked for about an hour. It was not a very good conversation. I apologized for it later.

I got off the phone when I saw my dad and Hee-jye in front of the car. Hee-jye was hugging a large white jar to his chest. I wondered if the jar was warm to the touch.

Tomorrow: Interring the ashes