Yesterday's Funeral

It's difficult to write about anything else this morning. Like millions of others, I watched the funeral procession for former President Reagan from its beginning at 16th Street and Constitution Avenue until all the dignitaries had left the Capital rotunda. Even after that, we watched as normal folks filed by the flag-draped casket, their casual dress in the summer heat a bit at odds with their formal demeanor. Men had removed their hats, many clasped their hands behind their backs, and not a few wept or crossed themselves.

As the caisson rolled down Constitution Avenue, reporters from several networks commented on the extraordinary quietness of the thousands who lined the street. Fox News Channel's Brit Hume had the good sense and respect to allow the procession to pass mostly in silence. One heard only horse hooves, the military bands, and the occasional siren in the distance, but almost no talking. Like the solemn display in the rotunda a bit later on, this unusually formal behavior demonstrated that we Americans haven't lost our sense of decorum, pop culture's oft-lamented vulgarities notwithstanding.

I confess that I never took a shine to Nancy Reagan while she was First Lady, but her dignity and bearing yesterday brought tears to my eyes several times. The crowd applauded her when she emerged to oversee the transfer of the coffin to the caisson; one man's yell of "we love you Nancy" pierced the silence. Inside the Capital, as she caressed the flag on the coffin and spoke a few words to her Ronnie, she told (I think) her escort Dick Cheney that she didn't want to leave. I despise the word "heartbreak" in all its variants and would strike it from any student's paper or author's essay, but I suspect that most of us experienced precisely that as we watched.

I was particularly moved by two figures from the past: former Secretary of State George Shultz and former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Shultz, whose strength and commitment to advancing democracy I always admired, placed a hand on the coffin and bowed deeply. Thatcher touched the flag, genuflected, and turned toward the coffin once more as she walked away. Both looked stricken, yet they still carry that inner fire that made them great in their day -- and in ours, also.

Greatness can be described verbally, but, like athletic prowess, its qualities are best grasped when seen in action. It's a cliché to say we're bombarded by the visages of those others call great, or that fame is too often confused with importance. Yesterday we saw the reaction of a free people to real greatness, to importance of world historical dimensions. In such a display, our republican pageantry in all its glory becomes ancillary and inadequate to the great life we celebrate. The dissonance between the civic act of a state funeral and the largeness of the man is measured by our inability to capture him within the act itself. Paradoxically, it's that inadequacy that separates such public displays from empty ceremony. You can't contain or deconstruct true greatness, but you can certainly feel its presence.