Recognizing the dead

People die every day. Most have a family or friends to recognize and, perhaps, commemorate a death. Some do not; at the moment of their death they are alone. They met and knew many people, but for a period of time they have been alone. They may be homeless. They have not seen their family in a long time. They are poor. Students at a prep school, Roxbury Latin, in Boston have decided to acknowledge these unknowns. They have volunteered to be pallbearers for these people. Their most recent service was for a man who died alone in September, and for whom no next of kin was found. He's being buried in a grave with no tombstone, in a city cemetery.

The students read the following at the grave site as the man was being interred.

"Dear Lord, thank you for opening our hearts and minds to this corporal work of mercy. We are here to bear witness to the life and passing of Nicholas Miller. He died alone with no family to comfort him. But today we are his family, we are here as his sons We are honored to stand together before him now, to commemorate his life, and to remember him in death, as we commend his soul to his eternal rest."

This activity is so rare that NPR had an article about it.