When we registered yesterday, we were warned to take the Skyway (or, as I like to call it, the Habitrail) to and from the convention center today because of the crowds expected to be lining the street for Muhammad Ali's funeral. Everyone standing in line everywhere was abuzz with the list of people who were going to be in attendance.
This morning, we left to go grade papers in the cool of the dawn, and there was nobody out yet. By the time we went into the large open area outside the grading room for our morning break, streets had been blocked off and official vehicles could be seen over at the YUM! Center. It had begun.
We couldn't see any of the actual procession, but we saw bunches of people standing around waiting for it. Some of the readers looked up the live stream on their phones, and so groups of two or three stood there at the windows watching slow moving progress on the tiny screens and trying to figure out if it would get to our location before we had to go back inside again.
At lunch, I needed to get out and walk around a minute, and I took the opportunity to walk to a souvenir shop/information center right across the street from the convention center. There was a huge line of people, and they were all clamoring to buy orange shirts commemorating the day.
After the day's grading, I went to grab a sandwich, and everywhere, there were things related to Ali, signs on the side of city buses, a big electric billboard showing images from this life, people walking by in shirts. After I got my food, I walked back to the hotel. When I got to the street the YUM! Center is on, it was lined with makeshift booths fabricated from crates, folding tables, tarps. People were hawking $10 shirts for two city blocks' worth of space. It was a little surreal.
The thought that kept coming to me over and over again was how his family felt about this, how he would have felt about this. I guess to me grief is just such a private thing that I hate the thought of sharing it with anyone. Maybe it is different for them since he was such a world-famous icon. They'd been sharing him with everyone everywhere for so long that it has to be different, I suppose.
It bothered me that people were lined up and selling shirts for the same reason. It always seems so unbearably crass and, to be honest, cruel when I see what looks like someone trying to make money of someone else's tragedy. Maybe they were out there with them to honor a hero. Maybe it was a tribute somehow.
Then there are those who were buying the shirts. Did the people who bought them do so to honor him? Or was it sort of a "been there, done that" trophy? We wound up being here by the greatest accident of timing. Thousands of others made the journey specifically for this funeral. Why did they come? It's a question I would especially like to ask of the "dignitaries" who have kept the skies and the police force busy. Some of them had meaningful ties to Ali and his family. It made sense that they would come to honor that. How many others showed up because it was the place where all the cameras were running right now?
None of it is really my business. I just hope that it was all the way he would have wanted it, the way his family felt comfortable with. In the end, that is the only thing that could possibly have mattered today. No matter what he was to the rest of the world the rest of the time, he was their husband, father, family member, friend, and now he is gone. Their grief deserves respect. I hope they feel that it was given.
Beautifully said, and indeed their grief deserves respect.
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