Monday, October 15, 2007

Turkish Funeral

I went to a Turkish funeral today. Everyone met outside of the mosque & had a bit of social time (Turks turn EVERYTHING into social time) until the call to prayer. After that, then some men came out & said prayers for the deceased (they did two funerals at once). For each prayer, all of the men in the "audience" would do a little motion. One was putting their hands by their ears, then another was to turn the head left, then right. It was so strange to see them all in sync. Then the funeral was over. The casket of the woman we were mourning was covered in daisies, which I thought was really beautiful.

2 comments:

Wry said...

We take our group of inbounds to tour a funeral home so they can learn about US funeral customs. Most of the kids try to crawl in the caskets for photos.

Grandma Ginny said...

It's amazing how different cultures do their grieving and funerals. It is good you experienced this. Think of you so often, and miss & love you.