Over 20 silent minutes, my thoughts drifted to a string of recent family funerals back home in the States. After a graveside Catholic service, we left the polished coffin surrounded by flowers. Long after someone else patted the dirt down smooth we returned to freshly grown grass and a shiny headstone. Attending this funeral in the Gaeltacht—the Irish-speaking area of Ireland—wasn't a requirement. I didn't know the deceased personally, only that he was the first cousin of an Irish family I wasn't yet legally tied to. After surviving my own family's dark funeral season, I wanted to see how another culture mourned their dead, how tradition helped people to celebrate life.