The church hall was crowded. A sea of faces amassed in muted black. The only color emanated from the tall stained-glass windows lining the ancient walls. Glorious golden light bathed the coffin, closed, at the front: the focus of attention.

Who was in the coffin?

Person after person stood before the crowd, tearfully reminiscing of the man that was. Claiming to know who he was, intimately and deeply. Stating that he would be sorely missed.

‘A man of vision,’ orated his closest business partner and friend, ‘that’s who he was.’

‘A man of courage,’ his brother said softly, ‘that’s how I’ll remember him.’

‘A kind, gentle, loving man,’ sobbed his wife, ‘and a wonderful father.’

Lovely sentiments and lovely eulogies all around. Words that could be heard at ten thousand funerals at ten thousand different locations.

The man in the coffin could not share his side of the story. He could not divulge that his last business venture secretly cheated his so-called friend out of millions. He could not confess to his brother how he feared death, and would have traded places with him if such a wish could be granted. He could not admit to his grieving wife that he had slept with several women since they vowed their undying love in this very church decades ago. Nor would he want to.

Memories of corruption, greed, cowardice and infidelity, these were things the man in the coffin actively and subconsciously repressed. Deeds and actions he chose to hide. Because, as he told himself, that’s not who he truly was.

The man in the coffin was gone. All that remains are the people. The people who thought they knew him, with all their memories and ideas of who he was, or who they wanted him to be.

Who was the man in the coffin? No one knows. Not even the man in the coffin.