Cleanse

Some Die Alone

In January of 2016 NPR reported on a Mike Pojman. He is the assistant headmaster at Roxbury Latin Boys School in Boston.^[1] Pojman engages his senior high students in a program which connects them with people who have died alone.

The story focused on six senior high students from Roxbury who volunteered to be pallbearers for a man who died alone, and for whom no next of kin was found.^[2]  He was being buried in a grave with no tombstone. The students, dressed in jackets and ties, carried the plain wooden coffin, and took part in a short memorial. They read together, as a group, these words:

“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…”

After the ceremony the students laid flowers. Then they piled back into the van, driving back to school in time for their next lesson.

“It’s the right thing to do,” says funeral director Robert Lawler. “You know, you can’t leave these poor people lying there forever.”

It’s a touching story. It reminds us that some people die alone. And it raises a question: How far would someone go to stand with those who are alone? It’s one thing to stand with those who die alone. It’s another to stand with those who live alone.Read More »Fearless: Unclean (Matt. 8:1-4) Chris Altrock – February 5, 2017