After a series of telephone conversations and email exchanges over the weekend with a woman whose friend had died after months of illness after an accident, I set off in down the N340 towards Gibraltar this afternoon, to officiate at a funeral in Manilva cemetery chapel. It looked straightforward enough, with the destination marked as being close to the AP-7 toll road exit, which runs inland, up and away from the coast. Thankfully I was in good time. I'd expected the cemetery to be signed from the coast road, where Manilva seemed to be located, but there were no signs. I overshot my junction by several kilometres before I realised my error.
As I was turning to back-track, the funeral director called to ask where I was, as the family had arrived. 'Estoy perdido' I told him. At this stage I was still half an hour early for my rendezvous. I guess it says something about the expectations of funeral directors have of clergy in the part of the world. Part of the mourning ritual happens in the cemetery chapel, and the priest, I guess, is usually there to accompany mourners.
The caller said he'd get an English speaking colleague to call me back. I stopped and asked the way of two women in a car in a lay-by on the edge of Manilva Playa - the built up coastal resort. One of them was English, and the other was Spanish, neither of them proficient at giving directions in response to my questions, but I gathered I was within a kilometre of the junction required to take me inland, up to the old coastal hill village of Manilva, on whose outskirts the new municipal cemetery is located. One more enquiry from a young man parked near the Police station, directed me around the by-pass, and I arrived twenty five minutes before the appointed hour.
There there thirty mourners present, filling the chapel entirely. The cemetery building housed a couple of other chapels of different sizes, and there was a notice to say that there was a crematorium, although I was unable to detect an incinerator smoke stack in the complex. The deceased asked to be cremated, but officialdom would not provide the necessary permissions. A hospital autopsy report was awaited, which could take many months to receive, as the deceased had suffered a head injury, followed later by a stroke it was necessary to determine if these were connected in terms of cause of death - presumably for insurance purposes. So, until permission is granted she had to be 'immured', which I think is the correct description for burial in a wall of niches, still the most commonplace means of burial in Spain, as in other parts of Europe.
So, at the conclusion of the service, coffin, congregation and priest had to descend two cemetery levels to reach the assigned niche - steps for the majority, the ramp for me, the coffin and funeral attendants. I hadn't climbed up the rickety metal ladder to the platform required for top level nice burial, since I did a funeral in Nerja two years ago, but at least I was prepared, blessed the niche, and read the committal prayer to advance the procedure. The cementing of the coffin into its niche behind a slab took only a few minutes with a silicone compound injection gun, wielded by one of the cemetery attendants. Then I dismissed the assembly with a blessing.
Apart from long standing friends and neighbours, people had travelled considerable distances along the Costa del Sol to attend the funeral, tribute to the fact that the deceased had helped them or provided them with professional services as an estate agent in times past. A death brings together all sorts of people who don't know each other, as well as family and friends. Within the hour, as I was taking a few photos as the last car departed, the cemetery superintendent appeared and announced it was closing time. Municipal punctuality. Mine was the last car in the upper car park, the other occupants were local rubbish collection vehicles. There's a certain municipal pragmatic logic about that.
At the moment, locum cover for the two vacancies on the Costa del Sol is a bit thin. Covering this funeral for our neighours in Costa del Sol West meant a hundred mile round trip for me. That's a far cry from any ministry I've exercised previously.
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