On my way to work this morning at 5:30 AM I was driving down a seldom traveled road that has a graveyard on it. I noticed a set of headlights traveling through the graveyard, which stood out as rather odd, who the hell goes into a graveyard at 5:30am. I assumed it was a cop on patrol or something. Sunrise is 7am this time of year.
I got to my destination and loaded up then headed back out. The road the graveyard is on intersects with the main road I was traveling on. A police cruiser leading a funeral procession out of the graveyard pulled into the street to stop traffic and allow the procession to take a left onto the main road. There is a funeral parlor in that direction. After the procession all made it onto the main road the cruiser followed allowing traffic to continue. Another oddity was the cruiser was a state cop rather than a local cop I’d expect to detail such an event.
Do 5am funerals fit any particular religion. Every funeral I’ve attended was during daylight or at the very least evening into darkness. The funeral processions always travel from the funeral home to the graveyard. They put the casket in the ground then everyone leaves on their own accord without a procession out.
Without further understanding I’m going to assume it was a group of vampires pulling up a recently embraced and buried kindred and taking him back to their lair for a celebration ceremony.
OK, pulling a longshot guess. Could it have been a Jewish funeral? Don’t the Orthodox have a very strict “24 hours and you gotta be planted” policy? So Grandpa dies in his sleep and they scramble getting the burial together and he gets buried before sunup the next day?
I thought that too, when I read the OP. But, (I honestly have no idea) do the Orthodox get buried in (I cannot think of a better word) multi-culti cemetaries?
My other thought was that it was someone’s last wishes. (Nonvampire, just a night person.)
The staties being there–maybe someone famous in those parts?
My research thus far. The cemetery belongs to the local Roman Catholic Church. My googling found no scheduled funerals in this town.
I just saw one marked state cruiser. The Stateys have an awful lot of unmarked cruisers these days so there could have been more I didn’t identify. Maybe someone attending was also a state officer so volunteered to do the detail?
Was the cemetery out of town? If so, the sheriff &/or the state patrol will have jurisdiction to do traffic control. In many counties, the sheriff has a MOU, (Memorandum Of Understanding) with the state troopers to provide this service. That may explain their presence.
As to why before dawn, that may have been at the request of the deceased. I have attended a predawn funeral before. The burial was at the cemetery out of town by 12 miles. The funeral was, in effect, a breakfast at the lodge where he was a member.
The state troopers handled the crowd control. All seven of us. Oh yea, now I remember, that was to keep the teaming throngs off of us mourners! All zero of them. The troopers did a good job, none of us got mobbed.
He was not a member of any organized religion. He was a little weird though. He was also a great friend.
OK. The funeral cortege started at the cemetery and went somewhere else? Isn’t that backwards? Usually you get a police escort to the cemetery. Then everyone finds their own way home.
Could this be a disinterment with the body being taken somewhere for either autopsy or reburial? I could see one of those being done in the wee hours so as not to disturb passers-by.
You know, this seems the most likely guess I’ve seen so far. Now, getting someone to do the work in the wee, small hours is another matter, but who knows?
I’ve done disinternments before, when working at a cemetery. Almost all pre-dawn, with a handful done in the later morning (usually when the family wasn’t involved in the request for disinternment). It typically fell to the lowest man on the totem pole to do the actual work, though the cemetery administrator was always on-site.
If they were reburying the dearly departed somewhere else, the family could be there. Not sure if a bunch of officials witnessing would be given an escort, but I’ve never seen a cortege away from a cemetery.