Once upon a time, a small but select group of people, perhaps we were thirty, perhaps a little fewer, gathered on a Cycladic island in early June for the first day of a week-long training with a spiritual teacher who was truly one of a kind. We were joyful for the opportunity, and hopeful for some meaningful support, especially in view of a fifteen-year economic, psychological, and values-based collective crisis that had just emerged.
Early summer, mid-week, the island was at its very best; not too many people, clean beaches, sun that didn’t bite, food insanely fresh, rooms wrapped in quiet. In the late afternoons we wandered through fields that were saying farewell to spring’s green for the golden hues of the summer sun. At night we gazed at constellations of stars, thousands of them, scattered across a night sky no longer outshone by the city lights.
But all day long we were shut inside a semi-basement room with natural ventilation, sitting on some basic chairs arranged in a circle over a beautiful Japanese tatami mat. And receiving the teachings of the teacher. Very soon we were literally falling like flies onto the tatami, sinking into deep sleep. The resonances of what we were hearing, experientially and for the first time, were so powerful that our spiritual-nervous system needed to lower our brainwaves to the level of sleep to process so many new frequencies.
Between the exercises, the sleep, and the meals, we managed to retain some of it. There was so much and it was overwhelming. One thing I remember clearly, though, was the teacher’s question when he was explaining the difference between the world and our world.
“Happy people are down at the beach. Why are you here?”
The question was rhetorical, and it would introduce us to the nature of spiritual training which, as it turned out, became a lifelong path. It was summer, life outside was pulsing, and yet there we were, inside a room, away from the sun, the sea, the people, experiencing the labour of beginning a new teaching. Why among all possible life choices we had chosen this path?
Many years later, the answer was visualised before me at a funeral.
Over the past year, through a series of unexpected circumstances, I reconnected professionally with a colleague through work synergies and a temporary office cohabitation, the end of which coincided with his father’s death. In the meantime, we had begun having some personal conversations, every now and then. I felt the need to be there for him, having witnessed and experienced first-hand his efforts to offer his father the very best he could during the last months of his life. In moments like this, relationships have the power to shift.
The funeral was in the province. My mother accompanied me on the trip; she felt, too, that it was important for us to attend. “These things are human,” she told me when I suggested it. “Of course we should go.”
Setting off very early, we arrive around midday in a town unknown to us, with not a single familiar face. We wander through the streets to get a feel for the place and connect with it. To pass the time a bit, we even have the traditional “consolation coffee” offered at the funerals beforehand. Eventually we reach the church early, trying to understand the local customs, because every place has its own.
The colleague arrives early too. He is driving the car himself behind the hearse. And the first thing he does when he steps out is to kiss and embrace his young daughter, a girl in her early teens, who was sitting right behind him in the car. Knowing him in a more formal work setting, where we all wear the role of the “serious professional”, I had never seen him express such tenderness and sweetness before.
He himself looks tired, his eyes worn out from crying. He didn’t know I would come; I hadn’t told him so as not to burden him at such a time. I approach him while it is still early, mostly to greet him and, more importantly, to silently convey to him, “I’m here to support you in your grief, simply with my presence.” He sees me, he doesn’t have the energy to show any kind of surprise, and says, almost faintly from fatigue, yet with an affirming look, “Ah, you came.” I kiss him on both cheeks and touch him somewhere on the body, a kind of half-embrace meant to comfort.
He walks ahead as they prepare the area with the family seats at the centre of the church. The church is enormous, I think it is far too big and that we look few. It is simply early. Within the next half hour it fills to the brim with people.
His family stands in the designated area for greetings, with the open casket right in front of them. The custom is for friends to walk past the family and greet them one by one. I am holding two beautiful white flowers and I realise this is probably the time to offer them.
A little earlier, my mother and I had been trying to find a flower shop in the town. We had to walk all the way to the central square, where we found a first-class florist. “What do we buy for a funeral?” I asked, clueless. Every place has its own ways, after all. The florist, a very kind gentleman, asked me, “Is it for Mr. Th.?” “Yes, exactly,” I replied. “Did you know him?” “Not only did I know him, but he was also a family friend,” he replied, and I saw genuine emotion and sadness in his eyes. A sense of human warmth. It was the first moment I felt this warmth, a feeling that would permeate the entire funeral that day.
So, holding the white flowers, bought from his friend’s shop, I take my place in the informal circle that led toward the family greeting. Everything feels very familiar to the people who are arriving. They all seem to know each other well, especially those who were there since early on.
From my spot in the line, I see his father in the casket up close. I recognise his face from the photograph my colleague kept in the office. But seeing him “up close” for the first time in this way feels like an act of pure surrealism.
Step by step, I move closer, place the white flowers in a lovely wooden basket set just before the family’s position, the line moves slowly, people greet, kiss and speak to the family. I begin to feel slightly out of place. “What am I doing here? I don’t know anyone, and maybe this is a close-family gathering.” I wonder if I should have come at all. After all, my relationship with my colleague wasn’t that close, and that would have fully justified my absence. But by then I was already very near.
There are three siblings. His sister is by the deceased the entire time, kissing him, speaking to him; she is the voice of consolation piercing through everything. First in the receiving line is the eldest brother. I see him up close. Tall, resembling my colleague a little. As I wait for the others to finish, he looks at me with a gaze that feels like to say, “Who are you?” My colleague rushes to bridge the gap, saying to him, “She’s an associate at the office,” upgrading my standing to that of “an associate.” It isn’t exactly true, but it doesn’t matter; it is the quickest way to explain my presence in the two or three minutes I have to greet them.
I offer my condolences, but honestly the only person I truly care about in that moment is my colleague, whom here I feel as a friend. As soon as I finish offering my condolences to the first brother, I look at him straight in the eye and hug him. I say absolutely nothing at all. There is nothing to say in the face of death. I simply embrace him. Warmly. Sincerely. And in that, everything has been said. With human compassion. That’s it. Nothing more.
I move on to the sister, who is devoted, body and soul, to the coffin. She doesn’t know me; I greet her wanting, in that gesture, to show how deeply her manner touches me, as she stands there, immersed in a profound farewell. I move on to two ladies, one of whom I assume from her features is his mother, and the other perhaps an aunt. Behind them stand many other relatives, cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces. I return to my seat, next to my mother. I don’t know why, but this was a little more difficult than I expected. It was much more human, grounded, and real for “just a colleague.”
Time passes, and people begin to gather in large numbers. I knew their father was important, but I had no idea. I realise that this is a prominent family, and so are most of those who arrive. Wealthy and well-dressed. People begin chatting among themselves, exchanging news about their lives, their children, their work. I start to grow tired of the murmurs and the gossip. It is also part of the situation, but after all, it is a funeral. I soften my thoughts. Everything belongs to life. Life and death, two forces always present together in everything.
The church is now full. I see many people who, like us, travelled here solely for the funeral. Later, he will confirm to me that yes, people from his university years were present, as well as many colleagues from the offices he worked in. Both I and they spontaneously offered to take on part of his workload for as long as needed. Our job carries many deadlines and pressure, and its pace does not match the unpredictable, non-linear nature of grief. The support he receives is selfless. And I wonder what it is like for him to know now, on a deeper level, beyond professional expediency and social obligations, just how truly loved he is.
We were fortunate that the church had two very good priests for the funeral service. They admonish the congregation gently. They remind us that we are here not primarily to exchange news, but to pray for the departed. I am glad to hear a spiritual word. As much as I can, I maintain visual contact with the family’s area. I check on how my friend is. At moments he cries. Fortunately he cries, fortunately he allows himself to let his feelings flow, I think to myself, and I feel care for him.
A beautiful ritual follows with prayers and supplications by the priests. At some point, it is time for the eulogy. I thought his children would deliver it, but apparently they couldn’t. The eulogy is delivered by the president of the professional association to which the deceased once belonged, though he had been retired for years.
Even so, the speech was heartfelt. He spoke of the man, the husband, the father. He described his virtues, his popularity, and the respect he inspired. Listening to the eulogy, it sounded to me like a speech of thanks. I thought, this is exactly how my colleague is like. I did not know his father, but whatever qualities he had, spoken aloud now before everyone, are precisely how I have experienced my colleague as a human being up to this day.
“His father’s qualities live within him. This is his father’s living legacy. And so his essence will remain alive,” I murmured to myself. As the family honours the living legacy he leaves behind, they affirm his life’s path and choices. An immortal life, a life that continues to bear fruit.
The first part of the ritual concludes; we are informed about the burial at the cemetery. It is not within the city. I am a little anxious about the time and the route, I don’t know the roads here. As I step outside, I meet several colleagues who, like me, came from far away. We greet each other, wishing the deceased “a good paradise”, meaning “a blessed rest”.
At the cemetery, the funeral service they had chosen, first-class, prepares the burial calmly, beautifully, with care. They even give us single-use plastic gloves for the soil. I don’t take them. Let us touch the earth; let us remember, even briefly, the meaning of life. This earth will outlive us all. Let us honour our mortality. I walk up among the last ones to throw the soil. Behind me I see the eldest son with their mother leaning on his shoulder over the dug grave. She cries quietly, inwardly. They remain there together for a final farewell. For as long as they need.
We start heading out. By chance, we cross paths again with my colleague. He is once more with his young daughter, tender with her as before. We find a moment to greet him again, mostly my mother. And then, in an impulse, I look him in the eyes and hug him again. This time in two stages. A long embrace without words. As if I were feeling the family’s pain from within, the pain I had somehow come to know over the past hours. Now I feel myself empathising more deeply.
But it was a gesture beyond my usual ways. I have not embraced like this other people that I know much better at their children’s funeral. Where did this come from now?
I felt my heart freed and my body relaxed. This embrace was pure; it carried no thinking, only expression. It was an offering of energy to support another human being, as if I were saying: borrow some of my energy today; I am well, take what you need to lean on, because you have spent so much life inside you these past hours. I am here for you, because today you are grieving, and you do not need to go through this alone.
It was also a profound “thank you” for what I was experiencing through meeting his family and being welcomed for a moment into a part of his personal life. Many hours had passed by then, and I was still witnessing a family united, loving, each one standing for one another, and all together standing for life. I knew that my colleague was, by nature, an optimistic person, we had analysed this many times, but today’s experience was a revelation on another level.
I was in front of a family that puts into practice what Father Vassilios Thermos says in his book “Do We Need the Family?” when he writes that we create families in order to experience relationships of love with one another. There was such love at Mr. Th.’s funeral that even we, the third parties, felt it deeply. And our own words and actions towards the family mirrored precisely that love. Everything was love. And while we had gone with the intention of being there for the family, through it all, this beloved family stood in solidarity with our own souls, and offered us the gifts of their composed presence and harmony.
As I have written before, as I have said many times, death is the celebration of the soul. And at funerals something of the soul and the character of the one who departs always shows. It was a very beautiful funeral, so coherent and graceful in all its parts, exactly as beauty, elegance, and coherence had shaped the life of the one who passed away. And his greatest legacy was that he had managed to pass on to his children the same values about the joy of life, the celebration of life, the way to visit and remain on the “beach”, no matter what life throws their way.
To me, my colleague is someone who embodies “the joy of life”; gifted with natural beauty, polite, well-mannered, successful in his work, never petty or small, and with a remarkable capacity to be loved and to sustain his social relationships for years. And yet, what I witnessed at the funeral is the true wealth of any life. A close-knit family, with tenderness and love between them, friends ready to support both emotionally and practically, people like the florist, mourning the loss of their own person. A family that moved me and reminded me of the sacredness and the potential of life.
The allure of lived love transcends the emotional limits we set for ourselves regarding what it can or cannot give, express, or silence within us. This man’s charm is great not because he carries many appealing traits that make him attractive and popular, as did his father. It is great because he expresses something he and his family embody without fully realising it because he grew up in an context where all of this was natural, and therefore he cannot easily see the other side, of those of us who are not “from the beach.” The charm of this family and its essential legacy is that they radiate the human warmth, the tenderness that we all seek though few of us have known it experientially. There is nothing more attractive in human contact than this sense of familiarity, embrace, and belonging which open-hearted and emotionally full people can offer us.
Alongside all this, the experience of watching this family united in their pain, loving, supporting one another, was the answer to my teacher’s question.
Yes, indeed, happy people are down on the beach, enjoying their lives. They form loving relationships, strong friendships, get married, have families, children, grandchildren. They move through all the stages of life with the same intention: to live in such a way that when their time comes, their children will have a good farewell experience. And so they leave full, satisfied, accomplished. And they invite their friends to their farewell celebration, knowing that even after death they will move them for all the right reasons that make life feel precious.
And what can we do, those of us who are not down on the beach, who in our funerals and in our lives are different?
We experience a distance so vast that it seems unbridgeable by any kind of human intervention. Our story is our story. Our path is our path. The beach is one of the infinite possibilities we can explore. As another friend and colleague often says, what we can do when looking at others is to take good examples.
I had the opportunity to see what it is like when a family is truly loving. This gives me new reference points within myself. I may not yet know how to create such a thing, but I know now that it is possible, that this possibility lives right beside me, in my everyday life. I can be inspired by it.
As I told my colleague and friend during the months of our occasional cohabitation, through the osmosis of living alongside him, I gained something, I was inspired by qualities that differ from mine, and I learned something from the things I have not yet learned to do as well.
And I thank his family for this soul-hospitality they offered me. As I eventually confided to him afterwards, I went there to support him, but in the end it seems that this funeral supported and nourished my own soul. I did not expect our professional collaboration to reveal such aspects of life. And again, I will repeat at funerals we receive some of the most essential gifts of our lives. We, the people who were not down on the beach, know this very well. And that is why we can remind this to those who went down to the beach.
Time moves on; relationships change. We are what we do in order to live.
I hold the image of that family within me. As if the beach itself sent me a signal that it awaits me.
Thank you, Mr. Th. I receive the gifts of your family with love.
A “Good Heaven” to you, and may your children and grandchildren live well. Your legacy is alive and inspires us. My humble thanks. Until we meet again, at the Upper Beach.