While I was in my death cleaning mode I found a copy of this poem I had printed out from Garrison Keillor’s “The Writers’ Almanac” from National Public Radio (NPR ).   It  was dated Saturday, December 27, 2003.  It seems appropriate for this World AIDS Day 2019.  Funerals can unite us.

1989
by Ron Koertge

Because AIDS was slaughtering people left and right,
      I went to a lot of memorial services that year.
There were so many, I’d pencil them in between
      a movie or a sale at Macy’s. The other thing that
made them tolerable was the funny stories people
      got up and told about the deceased: the time he
hurled a mushroom fritata across a crowded room,
      those green huraches he refused to throw away,
the joke about the flight attendant and the banana
      that cracked him up every time.

But this funeral was for a blind friend of my wife’s
      who’d merely died. And the interesting thing
about it was the guide dogs; with all the harness
      and the sniffing around, the vestibule of the church
looked like the starting line of the Iditarod. But
      nobody got up to talk. We just sat there,
and the pastor read the King James version. Then he
      said someday we would see Robert and he us.

Throughout the service, the dogs slumped beside their
      masters. But when the soloist stood and launched
into a screechy rendition of “Abide With Me,” they sank
      into the carpet. A few put their paws over their ears.
Someone whispered to one of the blind guys; he told
      another, and the laughter started to spread. People
in the back looked around, startled and embarrassed,
      until they spotted all those chunky Labradors
flattened out like animals in a cartoon about
      steamrollers. Then they started, too.

That was more like it. That was what I was used to-
      a roomful of people laughing and crying, taking off
their sunglasses to blot their inconsolable eyes.