Police cars run the length of the funeral procession. They tag-team back and forth, blue lights twirling, sirens whooping, one police car stopping in an intersection, the other surging forward to block the next intersection.
Opposite lanes of traffic come to a halt, cross traffic at each intersection stops, on a busy weekday, near the end of the lunch hour, when people are rushing back to work, or still trying to get a quick bite to eat, or run some errand, or do any number of things we all must crowd into our regular day-to-day lives.
They stop.
But the funeral procession moves forward.
All others put everything on hold in respect for the person who has passed, for the family that has lost a loved one.
This simple act is one of the reasons I fell in love with South Georgia.
Not every place does this.
In a lot of towns and cities across the country, the opposite lanes of traffic don’t stop for a funeral procession. They keep moving.
Here, that’s why one car may keep rushing forward in the opposite lane while the rest slow to a stop. Stopping for a funeral procession is new to them. It’s not necessarily disrespect but something that is new to someone who is new to South Georgia.
By blocking intersections, police escorts make sure cross traffic doesn’t strike the funeral procession, even if the cross traffic has the green light. If the funeral procession has the right-of-way even through red lights, there are several practical safety reasons for stopping cross traffic at intersections.
There are, however, no practical reasons to stop in the opposite lane. Not one. Not really.
But there are several reasons to stop: Respect. Compassion. Honor. Reflection. Generosity.
Reasons that represent the best of us.
Sure, the peer pressure of everyone else stopping, or the fear a police escort might pull them over motivates some folks, but mostly, we stop because it’s the right thing to do.
We are motivated by the better angels in each of us.
We do not ask if the person in the hearse is Black or white or Hispanic or Asian.
We do not ask if the person is “legal” or “illegal.”
We do not ask the person’s sexual preference.
We do not ask if the person is old or young, male or female, Democrat or Republican.
We stop whether the funeral procession is two cars or 200.
We stop whether the person in the hearse is the richest person in town or the poorest.
We don’t ask about any of these things in the moment. We stop without knowing anything about the person.
We stop because we recognize that someone has passed. Someone who may be a stranger but meant the world to the people in that procession.
We stop because at some point we have been in such a procession or one day will be. Seeing the cars stop in the opposite lane means a great deal to the people in the funeral procession.
We stop because, one day, hopefully much later, we all will die.
Because at the end of a person’s days, we are more alike than we are different. We are more than our politics and bitter divisions. We are all human. We are all mortal. We all hunger, thirst, seek love and hopefully love others in return.
We all breathe the same air, and some day we will, each one of us, breathe our last.